Uyghurs: Michelle Bachelet will soon visit Xinjiang in China

Michelle Bachelet, in Geneva, in December 2020. © DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS

Text by: Emmanuel Damien

3 mins

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights should be able to visit Xinjiang next May, following an agreement with Beijing.

Michelle Bachelet has been asking for access to the Uyghur Autonomous Region in western China since September 2018. And so far, as diplomats say, the conditions were not met.

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Decidedly, a lot will have happened behind the scenes of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

And the presence of the UN Secretary General at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games will probably have helped to make a visit that has become a sea serpent for many diplomats stationed in the Chinese capital.

Three years and nine months that the head of human rights at the United Nations knocks on the door of one of the most monitored regions in the world.

It has been nearly four years since there have been reports of re-education camps in Xinjiang where up to a million people are believed to have been interned.

Camps whose existence has long been denied by the authorities, before they are presented as "vocational training centers", see de-radicalization centers.

“Zero terrorist” strategy

This “zero terrorist” strategy would have paid off, according to the propaganda.

"

" said Xu Guisang on March 1 in a videoconference accessible to the foreign press

”

the Uyghur Autonomous Region Government Spokesperson continued.

Happiness of some misfortunes of others, Uyghur groups in exile continue to denounce arbitrary arrests or cases of forced labor.

To obtain this right of visit, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had to delay the publication of its report on human rights violations in Xinjiang, which was scheduled to be published before the Olympics.

Nor is there any question of speaking of “investigation” as for the WHO seeking the origins of Covid-19 in China, Beijing preferring the terms of “

”.

► To read also:

And then, on the side of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the requirement to be able to access the population without a supervisor, and probably to visit opponents, intellectuals in detention like

.

Travel under high surveillance

This is not the first time that local authorities have invited foreigners to Xinjiang.

Since the end of 2018, 158 groups, 2,000 people from 100 countries have visited the Uyghur autonomous region, Xu Guisang said.

With prerequisites for these trips.

One of the last times European chancelleries in Beijing received this kind of proposal, they politely declined the invitation in the name of unity among Europeans.

At the time, Sweden, which had a dispute with China, was excluded from the visit.

Foreign media were also invited to visit the oases of the Chinese far west, leaving them "

", according to the authorities.

A vision of things disputed by certain reporters who were able to go there.

If for Ramadan last year, the religious associations of Kashgar, a tourist hotspot in the region, invited journalists to come and see the "

" on the occasion of Muslim holidays, to At other times of the year, the region remains subject to strict controls which limit movement.

These trips are generally under close surveillance.

The health pass integrated into smartphones and essential for any movement in China no longer allowing discretion.

► To read also: Genocide against the Uyghurs: "I will never forget this hell, these rapes, these tortures"

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• China

• Terrorism

• UN

• Michelle Bachelet

• Human rights

• Uyghurs