The UN said an “independent and comprehensive assessment” of the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang region was needed.

Michelle Bachelet highlighted on Friday the need to carry out an “independent and comprehensive assessment” of the situation in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, while stressing that activists, lawyers and rights defenders face charges, arrests and unfair trials in the Asian giant.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said her office was working to find “mutually acceptable parameters” for her to visit China, including Xinjiang, where most of the oppressed Muslim Uyghurs live, whose rights are systematically violated, mainly in concentration camps which Beijing says are intended for “re-education.” Efforts to organize such a visit for the Commissioner for Human Rights date back to before she took office in September 2018..

Bachelet spoke about China while presenting his habit to the UN Human Rights Council report on the state of human rights in the world, which this time includes around 50 countries.

Bachelet acknowledged China’s progress in the fight against COVID-19, but said “Fundamental rights and civil liberties continue to be curtailed in the name of national security and the response” to the pandemic.

Concerned for detention centers For Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, this has been an international point of contention for many months, and Bachelet’s office and Chinese authorities have so far not arranged a visit to the region.

“In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, information that is in the public domain indicates the need for an independent and comprehensive assessment of the human rights situation,” Bachelet said, adding that its office investigates complaints of arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and sexual violence in institutions, among other human rights violations.

Bachelet’s office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said talks for a “technical preparatory mission” that could pave the way for Bachelet’s visit to China. Shamdasani said such a mission was necessary before a visit from Bachelet “to ensure meaningful access.”

Bachelet’s speech reviewed a number of rights concerns and issues, such as “The increasing expansion of the definition of” foreign agent “” in Russia; a “severe contraction of civic space” in several Southeast Asian countries; the “excessive use of force” against protesters in some South American countries; and the “sedition charges against journalists and activists” in India for reporting or commenting on farmers’ protests in that country.

Noted that several European governments have limited the work of groups defending the rights of migrants, and cited around fifty cases opened in Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands and Spain over the past five years concerning humanitarian search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean Sea.

The comments were unrelated to other Bachelet speeches and to the Council’s discussions on “significant country situations” in places that included Belarus, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Venezuela. In general, Bachelet warned of the impact of COVID-19 on human rights. “Today, in all parts of the world, people are lagging behind – or falling even further behind – as the coronavirus pandemic continues to gain traction,” he said.

By JAMEY KEATEN (Associated Press)

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