Top UN rights official seeks Xinjiang visit this year, says HK trials are a key test

GENEVA (REUTERS) - The top United Nations human rights official said on Monday (June 21) that she hopes to agree terms for a visit this year to China, including its Xinjiang region, to look into reports of serious violations against Muslim Uighurs.

This is the first time that Ms Michelle Bachelet has publicly suggested a timeline for the visit, which her office has been negotiating the terms of since September 2018.

China's UN mission in Geneva, contacted by Reuters for comment, said Xinjiang and Hong Kong were "inalienable parts of China's territory" and that it brooked "no interference by external forces", but made no comment on her visit.

Ms Bachelet is under growing pressure from Western states to secure unfettered access to Xinjiang, where activists say more than one million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims have been held in camps, some of them mistreated or subject to forced labour.

Beijing denies the accusations and describes the camps as vocational training facilities to combat religious extremism.

"I continue to discuss with China modalities for a visit, including meaningful access, to the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, and hope this can be achieved this year, particularly as reports of serious human rights violations continue to emerge," Ms Bachelet told the opening of a Human Rights Council session.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports this year documenting practices that they said could meet criteria for crimes against humanity against Uighurs in Xinjiang.

Ms Bachelet also told the council that the national security law imposed in Hong Kong a year ago has had a "chilling impact" on democratic space and media in the former British colony. She said 107 people have been arrested under the law, including 57 formally charged.

"This will be an important test of independence for Hong Kong's judiciary in its willingness to uphold Hong Kong's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in accordance with the Basic Law," she said.

Government officials in Beijing and Hong Kong say the national security law is needed to avert threats to national security, and that the rights and freedoms of ordinary Hong Kong people are protected.

"The High Commissioner is advised to stop making erroneous remarks against China, and refrain from interfering in China's sovereignty and judicial independence," Liu Yuyin, spokesman at China's mission in Geneva, said by email.

Critics say it is being used to crush dissent in the global financial hub, an assertion Beijing rejects.

Canada was set to deliver a joint statement on behalf of several dozen countries voicing concern about alleged human rights violations in both Xinjiang and Hong Kong, diplomats said.