UN blocked from meeting Uyghurs on Xinjiang visit

A UN HUMAN rights chief has admitted she was blocked from speaking with Uyghurs during a visit to Xinjiang, renewing a bitter split within the organisation over its handling of China.

On Wednesday, Michelle Bachelet told the UN Human Rights Council she could not talk “to any Uyghurs currently detained” and was accompanied by government officials last month.

It came after rights groups accused Ms Bachelet of amplifying China’s propaganda by visiting the region, where Beijing is accused of arbitrarily detaining more than one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities.

At the meeting, representatives of mostly Western countries said Ms Bachelet’s office should release a longpostponed report on China’s human rights conditions. Linda Thomasgreenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, told the gathering: “We urge you to immediately release your report on the human rights situation in Xinjiang.”

Meanwhile, Bolivia and Madagascar called on the UN to show “objectivity” and to avoid “politicisation” and “interference” in domestic affairs. Chen Xu, China’s ambassador, said the “hyped-up so-called report on Xinjiang” should “not be published at all”.