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UN human rights chief to visit China in May
Her visit would include a stop in the Xinjiang region where activists say some 1 million Uyghurs are held in mass detention, she told the Human Rights Council in Geneva by video message.
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United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet attends the opening of the UN Human Rights Council's main annual session on Feb. 24, 2020 in Geneva.The coronavirus pandemic's disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities, and protests triggered by George Floyd's death, have laid bare (AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)
U
N human rights chief Michelle Bachelet announced on Tuesday that she has reached an agreement with China for a visit, "foreseen" in May, and said that she had already raised the cases of some critics who have been arrested for speaking out.
Her visit would include a stop in the Xinjiang region where activists say some 1 million Uyghurs are held in mass detention, she told the Human Rights Council in Geneva by video message.
An advance team from her office would leave in April to prepare her visit - the first by a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights since Louise Arbour went to China in 2005 - she said, quoted by Reuters.
There have long been calls for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Xinjiang.
Rights groups say that at least one million mostly Muslim minorities have been incarcerated in "re-education camps" in Xinjiang, a far-western region where China is accused of widespread human rights abuses including forced sterilisations of women and forced labour.
The US government and lawmakers in five other Western countries have declared China's treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang a "genocide" -- a charge flatly denied by Beijing.
Beijing vehemently denies all such charges.
The UN rights office, OHCHR, has also drafted a report on the rights situation in Xinjiang, but its publication has long been delayed and it remains unclear when, if ever, it will be made public.
Beijing has for years said that Bachelet was welcome to visit Xinjiang but reaching an agreement on her demand for "meaningful and unfettered access" has until now appeared elusive.
On the sidelines of the Winter Olympics, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told leaders in Beijing last month that he expected them to allow Bachelet to make a "credible" visit to China, including to Xinjiang, AFP reported.
