UN human rights chief could not speak to detained Uyghurs or families during Xinjiang visit
Source: The Guardian
UN human rights chief could not speak to detained Uyghurs or families during Xinjiang visit
Michelle Bachelet says she was supervised by China officials throughout six-day visit that critics have called a propaganda coup for Beijing
Helen Davidson in Taipei
@heldavidson
Thu 16 Jun 2022 06.23 BST
Last modified on Thu 16 Jun 2022 12.37 BST
Michelle Bachelet has said wasn’t able to speak to any detained Uyghurs or their families during her controversial visit to Xinjiang, and was accompanied by government officials while in the region.
The UN human rights chief, who this week announced she would not be seeking another term, told a session of the 50th Human Rights Council in Geneva that there were limitations on her visit to the region in China, where authorities have been accused of committing crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.
Bachelet and a team from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spent six days in Guangdong and Xinjiang for a visit that activists and some western governments described as a propaganda coup for the Chinese government.
In a statement on Wednesday, Bachelet said she was able to meet members of civil society organisations without government supervision, but in Xinjiang was “accompanied by government officials throughout the visit”.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/16/un-human-rights-chief-could-not-speak-to-detained-uyghurs-or-families-during-xinjiang-visit
