United Nations On A Human Rights Visit To Xinjiang, China

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(OPINION) In May 2022, United Nations officials — including Michelle Bachelet, U.N. high commissioner for human rights — are to visit Xinjiang, China, to investigate the allegations of serious human rights violations.

This is the first time in over a decade that China is to host the U.N. human rights chief. Reportedly, a part of the investigative team has now been deployed to the region. However, as it stands, the visit is causing more concerns than it could provide solutions.

Among the concerns is the issue of the missing U.N. report on the situation in Xinjiang. In September 2021, Michelle Bachelet said at the opening of the U.N. Human Rights Council that her Office was “finalizing its assessment of the available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in that region, with a view to making it public.” This was also confirmed in December 2021. However, the report has not been published to date. The reason for the delay is not clear, especially after assurances of the upcoming publication. In the meantime, the U.N. team is proceeding with a fact-finding visit to Xinjiang.

While a step forward after the U.N. has been blocked from visiting the region for three and a half years, the visit is expected to be less of a fact-finding visit and more of a propaganda trip. Despite the fact that the U.N. team is arriving in China, there are several question marks in relation to the scope of the inquiry, the powers of the investigative team and terms of reference, among others. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the U.N. team has been or will be meeting with the survivors of the atrocities, whether in China or abroad.

In April 2022, prior to the visit, over 60 international nongovernmental organizations have written to Bachelet to uphold a principled and coherent response to China’s human rights crisis, including. Specifically, they requested that Bachelet make “inquiries about, and secure confidential and unsupervised meetings with, human rights defenders and others who have been forcibly disappeared, or are arbitrarily detained; ensure transparency with respect to measures taken to date to ensure access to China is effectively unfettered; ensure respect for a set of minimum standards for independent, unfettered access; publicly report on, and interrupt the visit in case of a breach of agreement by the Chinese authorities; ensure meaningful and safe participation by a diverse pool of independent civil society organizations, human rights defenders, individuals and victims, during the preparatory phase of any visit through separate, dedicated meetings for different regions and communities, and undertake broad consultations during and after the visit in a safe and confidential manner.”

The organizations further called upon Michelle Bachelet to release her report ahead of the visit to China, brief the Human Rights Council on its contents, meet safely with independent civil society organizations, human rights defenders and victims in advance of the visit, and ensure that field investigations use existing U.N. information — such as special procedures communications and treaty body reviews — as a foundation for inquiry. The U.N. is yet to formally respond to the letter and the concerns raised.

If the visit to Xinjiang is to deliver on anything, the concerns raised must be taken seriously and addressed as a matter of urgency. The evidence of egregious human rights violations in Xinjiang cannot be neglected with what is to be a perfectly designed propaganda trip that will show the United Nations only so much as the Chinese government wants it to see. Also, if the United Nations is serious about taking a victim-centered approach, the voice of victims cannot be silenced during this visit. How the United Nations handles this visit will define whether victims will have any trust in the United Nations processes.

Ewelina U. Ochab is a legal researcher and human rights advocate, doctoral candidate and author of the book “Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East” and more than 30 U.N. reports. She works on the topic of persecution of minorities around the world. This piece was republished from Forbes with permission.