UN High Commissioner expected in China for Xinjiang visit
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet during a press conference in Ouagadougou, December 1, 2021. © Sophie Garcia, AP
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Michelle Bachelet is expected in China this Sunday, in Canton, for a week-long visit which should take her to Xinjiang, where around a million Muslims, including Uyghurs, are believed to have been detained in re-education camps.
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With our correspondent in Beijing,
Stéphane Lagarde
It is a partially closed loop visit that the UN human rights chief should make.
It is not yet known which civil society organizations and local authorities Michelle Bachelet will be able to meet.
The press release from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights refers to discussions with "
representatives of the business world, academics, and the holding of a conference in front of students in Guangzhou
", the capital of Guangdong province. , in the south-east of China, where his delegation is already made up of five people who have spent 17 days of health quarantine at the hotel.
Unlike her team already on site, the High Commissioner for Human Rights will not be subject to quarantine upon her arrival.
Fear of a Potemkin visit
The virtual exchange that will take place on Monday with foreign embassies in China will perhaps make it possible to learn more about a program full of unknowns.
Will Michelle Bachelet be able to exchange with her interlocutors "
without hindrance
" as has been requested?
What personalities was she allowed to see during her trip to a region where the movements of foreign diplomats and journalists are closely monitored?
Could she talk to
Professor lham Tohti,
this Chinese economist and Sakharov Prize for Human Rights, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for “separatism”.
Finally, why arrive in Canton which is opposite the Uyghur autonomous region of Xinjiang, in the far west of China?
Many associations fear a Potemkin visit undermined by propaganda as for
the WHO in Wuhan
in the winter of 2021. The same skepticism on the side of Western chancelleries which have never succeeded in changing the parameters of an ultra-supervised trip.
It is in any case the first time that a High Commissioner for Human Rights has visited China since 2005. "
Despite the difficulties, we cannot be against such a visit, which has been requested for years
" , says a European diplomat.
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