China Allows UN Visit to Xinjiang

GENEVA – China has agreed to allow a UN visit to the Xinjiang region where it is accused of oppressing its Muslim minority.

“I am pleased to announce that we have recently reached an agreement with the Government of China for a visit,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said at the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

For years, China has barred UN investigations into alleged human rights abuses and violations in its Muslim majority Uyghur region in Xinjiang.

Bachelet added that in a first, the Chinese government had “initiated concrete preparations for a visit that is foreseen to take place in May of this year.” The team will depart for the visit in April.

“There was an agreement on the parameters that respect our methodology. And that includes unfettered access to a broad range of actors, including civil society,” UN rights office spokesperson Liz Throssell said at a UN press conference.

According to UN data, at least 1 million Uyghurs are kept against their will in internment camps Beijing calls “vocational training centers” and the international community defines as “re-education camps.”

After the UN and other international organizations reiterated their calls for the camps to be opened for inspection, China has finally allowed a few of its designated centers to be partially viewed by a small number of foreign diplomats and journalists.

China has been widely believed and accused to have been engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Beijing has however, persistently dismissed all such allegations as “lies and (a) political virus.”