Top UN human rights officials have arrived in China and will investigate human rights violations in the northwestern Xinjiang region. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s visit is the first visit by a top human rights official to the country since 2005.
There have often been allegations that China has imprisoned more than one million members of its Uyghur, Kazakh and other Muslim minority communities. It is alleged that China is running a campaign to erase their distinctive cultural identity. However, China says it has nothing to hide and welcomes everyone without political bias to visit Xinjiang and witness the campaign to uphold order and ethnic unity.
Bachelet will begin her six-day visit from the southern city of Guangzhou and then travel to Kashgar and Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi. Very limited information has been given about the visit and the media controlled by the Communist Party has not reported about his visit. The question is, will Bachelet be allowed into the now largely empty detention camps that China calls re-education centres? Will he be allowed to meet personalities like Ilham Tohti, the economist and Sakharov Prize winner imprisoned for calling for religious, political and cultural freedom?
China has also been accused of forced labor, forced birth control and separation of children from jailed parents. It was not immediately clear whether Bachelet would be able to meet with the officials who led the action in Xinjiang. Such people include former party secretary Chen Quanguo, who is now an official in Beijing. Bachelet plans to hold discussions with high-level national and local officials, civic bodies, business representatives and academics, and address students at Guangzhou University.
Amnesty International said Bachelet should raise “crimes against humanity and blatant human rights violations” during his visit. Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said in a statement: “Michelle Bachelet’s long-time visit to Xinjiang is an important occasion to look into human rights violations in the region, but it goes against the Chinese government’s efforts to hide the truth.” There will also be an on-going fight.