San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF TEMPERS CHINA CRITICISM
Groups assail emphasis on engagement
The United Nations’ top human rights official offered limited criticism of China’s crackdown on predominantly Muslim minorities, saying at the end of her six-day trip to the country Saturday that she had raised questions about its application of “counterterrorism and de-radicalization measures” but that her visit “was not an investigation.”
The comments from Michelle Bachelet, the first U.N. high commissioner for human rights to visit China since 2005, were sharply criticized by overseas Uyghurs and human rights advocates who had called on her to more vociferously condemn China’s policies.
Rayhan Asat, a lawyer whose younger brother is imprisoned in Xinjiang, China, said Bachelet’s comments “show a total disregard for the Uyghur people’s suffering.”
“The crisis has been going on for six years, and it needs no further examination but condemnation,” she said. “We did not see any of that in her remarks.”
Bachelet, who spoke by video with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during her trip, described the main outcome of the visit as the possibility of discussing concerns “at the highest level” and identifying areas “that could be very useful in the future to continue cooperating and collaborating.”
During her conversation with Xi, she said that it was a priority to engage with China’s government on the issue of human rights, adding that China “has a crucial role to play within multilateral institutions” in confronting threats to peace, climate change and inequality.
Human rights groups were critical of Bachelet’s emphasis on engagement with the Chinese government. “That mandate requires a credible investigation in the face of mountains of evidence of atrocity crimes, not another toothless dialogue,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.
Rights groups and scholars say China has held 1 million or more people in indoctrination camps, often for commonplace behaviors such as travel to Muslim countries or signs of religious devotion. Authorities have destroyed mosques and shrines, imprisoned scholars and intellectuals and forced people into work programs that experts say amount to forced labor.
China at first denied any such campaign, then framed it as a vocational program designed to steer people from terrorism and religious extremism.