Rights chief cautions Beijing on harsh Uyghur policies

BEIJING — The top U.N. human rights official said Saturday that she raised concerns with Chinese officials about the impact of the broad application of counterterrorism and deradicalization measures on the rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang region.

Michelle Bachelet, who visited Xinjiang as part of a six-day trip to China, said the visit was not an investigation but a chance to express concerns with senior Chinese leaders and pave the way for more regular interactions to support China in fulfilling its obligations under international human rights law.

“It provides an opportunity for me to better understand the situation in China, but also for the authorities in China to better understand our concerns and to potentially rethink policies that we believe may impact negatively on human rights,” she said before leaving China.

Bachelet’s measured words, while expected, will likely not sit well with activists and governments such as the United States, which have been critical of her decision to visit Xinjiang. China’s ruling Communist Party, which has vehemently denied all reports of human rights violations and genocide in Xinjiang, showed no sign of being open to change in a statement on the trip.

The statement, attributed to Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, accused some Western countries and anti-China elements of fabricating lies about Xinjiang under the guise of human rights. It said that the government had adopted lawful measures to combat violent terrorism and brought security, stability and prosperity to the region in China’s northwest.

Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said that Bachelet should condemn human rights violations in Xinjiang, call on China to release people arbitrarily detained and end systematic attacks on ethnic minorities in the region.

Bachelet, making the first visit by a U.N. high commissioner for human rights to China in 17 years, said she raised the lack of independent judicial oversight for a system of internment camps that swept up a million or more Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, according to estimates by experts.

China, which describes the camps as vocational training and education centers to combat extremism, says they have been closed. The government has never publicly said how many people passed through them.