(Geneva) Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, will be in China from Monday and will notably visit the autonomous region of Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of persecuting the Uyghur minority.
Posted at 7:51 a.m.
During her visit, the first of a High Commissioner to China since 2005, “the High Commissioner will meet a number of senior national and local officials”, underlines a press release from her services, which specifies that she will go to Canton but also in Xinjiang in Kashgar and Urumqi, the regional capital.
Mme Bachelet has been asking Beijing for “meaningful and unhindered access” to this region for years. A team of five people from the High Commission has already been in the country since April 25 to prepare for the High Commissioner’s visit.
This “preparatory team” had to carry out a quarantine, but Mme Bachelet, as a high-ranking official visitor, however, will not have to go through this stage. After the quarantine, the preparatory team was able to travel to Guangzhou and Xinjiang.
The former president of Chile will publish a press release and give a press conference on site at the end of her stay on May 28, further specify her services.
This visit announced several weeks ago is highly anticipated and not without risk for Mr.me Bachelet. Human rights NGOs and a number of members of the international community do not hide the fact that they expect the High Commissioner to denounce frankly the human rights violations of which they accuse Beijing. Chinese authorities deny the charges.
Mme Bachelet is already under pressure, particularly from the United States, because it has still not published a report on Xinjiang.
A spokeswoman recently explained that it would not be published until Mr.me Bachelet in China, since it will contain elements of his visit. Like all OHCHR reports, it will be submitted for consideration to the country concerned, China, so that Beijing can express its point of view.
According to human rights organizations, at least a million Uyghurs and members of other Turkic minorities, mainly Muslims, are or have been incarcerated in camps in Xinjiang, placed under close surveillance by the authorities.
Beijing disputes, saying that they are vocational training centers intended to keep them away from terrorism and separatism, after numerous deadly attacks attributed to Islamists or Uyghur separatists.