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Beijing: The highest UN human rights official mentioned on Saturday that she raised considerations with Chinese language officers concerning the impression of the broad software of counter-terrorism and deradicalisation measures on the rights of Uyghurs and different predominantly Muslim teams in China’s Xinjiang area.
Michelle Bachelet, who visited Xinjiang as a part of a six-day journey to China, mentioned the go to was not an investigation however an opportunity to lift considerations with senior Chinese language leaders and pave the way in which for extra common interactions to help China in fulfilling its obligations beneath worldwide human rights legislation.
“It offers a possibility for me to raised perceive the scenario in China, but additionally for the authorities in China to raised perceive our considerations and to doubtlessly rethink insurance policies that we imagine might impression negatively on human rights,” she mentioned in a video information convention on the ultimate day of her journey.
It’s unsure whether or not China’s ruling Communist Celebration, which has vehemently denied all experiences of human rights violations and genocide in Xinjiang, would change its insurance policies. Bachelet’s measured phrases, whereas anticipated, will possible not sit effectively with activists and governments reminiscent of the US, which have been crucial of her choice to go to Xinjiang.
Bachelet, making the primary go to by a UN excessive commissioner for human rights to China in 17 years, mentioned she raised the dearth of impartial judicial oversight for a system of internment camps that swept up one million or extra Uyghurs and different ethnic minorities, in accordance with estimates by consultants.
China, which describes the camps as vocational coaching and training centres to fight extremism, says they’ve been closed. The federal government has by no means publicly mentioned how many individuals handed by them.
Bachelet, who visited a jail and former centre within the Xinjiang metropolis of Kashgar, famous that this system relied on police to find out “tendencies towards extremism” and the allegations of use of drive on the centres and unduly extreme restrictions on spiritual apply.
“It’s crucial that counter-terrorism responses don’t lead to human rights violations,” she mentioned. “The applying of related legal guidelines and insurance policies and any obligatory measures … must be topic to impartial judicial oversight with better transparency in judicial proceedings.”
Bachelet described as “deeply worrying” the arrest of attorneys, activists, journalists and others beneath Hong Kong’s nationwide safety legislation, noting the semi-autonomous Chinese language metropolis’s repute as a centre for human rights and impartial media in Asia.
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