US leads criticism of UN rights chief over Xinjiang trip

GENEVA • The United Nations human rights chief came under fire for announcing a visit this week to China's Xinjiang, with the United States saying she was failing to stand up for the region's Uighur community.

After years of requesting "meaningful and unfettered" access to far-western Xinjiang, Ms Michelle Bachelet will lead a six-day mission to China starting tomorrow, her office said.

The visit, at the invitation of Beijing, marks the first trip to China by a UN rights chief since Ms Louise Arbour's visit in 2005.

The US, in forceful criticism, said it was "deeply concerned" that Ms Bachelet, a former president of Chile, was going ahead without guarantees on what she can see.

"We have no expectation that the PRC will grant the necessary access required to conduct a complete, unmanipulated assessment of the human rights environment in Xinjiang," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, referring to the People's Republic of China.

He also voiced alarm that Ms Bachelet has not released a long-anticipated report on Xinjiang, where the US and other Western nations say Beijing is carrying out "genocide" against Uighurs and other mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking people.

"Despite frequent assurances by her office that the report would be released in short order, it remains unavailable to us and we call on the high commissioner to release the report without delay and not to wait for the visit," Mr Price said.

Her "continued silence in the face of indisputable evidence of atrocities in Xinjiang and other human rights violations and abuses throughout the PRC is deeply concerning", he added.

Ms Bachelet has been demanding access to all regions of China since she took office in 2018. She has repeatedly voiced concern about allegations of widespread abuses in Xinjiang but has been criticised for not taking a strong enough stance.

Rights campaigners accuse the ruling Communist Party of widespread abuses in the name of security, saying at least one million mostly Muslim people have been incarcerated in "re-education camps" in a bid to forcibly integrate them into China's Han majority.

Beijing denies genocide allegations, calling them the "lie of the century" and arguing that its policies have countered extremism and improved livelihoods.

In March, the UN rights office said an agreement had been reached on arranging a visit.

Ms Bachelet will meet "a number of high-level officials at the national and local levels", her office said on Friday. REUTERS