A visit to minefields: the UN high commissioner for human rights launched an investigation in China on Monday (May 23rd) into the crackdown on Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, amid fears that Beijing could restrict his freedom of movement.

After several years of tough negotiations with the Chinese authorities, Michelle Bachelet, the 70-year-old former Chilean president, is expected to stay six days in the country, until Saturday.

She spoke on Monday by videoconference with the heads of delegations of around 70 foreign embassies in China, diplomatic sources told AFP.

According to these sources, Michelle Bachelet assured diplomats that she had negotiated access to detention centers and could meet with local human rights activists.

UN officials had been wrestling with Beijing since 2018 to gain "free and meaningful access" to Xinjiang.

This region of northwestern China, long hit by bloody attacks, for which the authorities accuse separatists and Uyghur Islamists, has been under drastic surveillance since the mid-2010s.

Western studies accuse China of having interned at least a million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities in re-education camps and prisons, and even of imposing forced labor.

Beijing denies these accusations.

The risk of a guided tour organized by Beijing

Michelle Bachelet's visit is the first by a high commissioner for human rights to China since 2005.

The UN official must go in particular to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, as well as Kashgar, a city in the south of the region where the Uighur population is particularly large.

Michelle Bachelet will also meet "a number of senior officials at national and local levels", "civil society organizations, representatives of the business world as well as academics", indicated her cabinet.

The UN official will also give a lecture at the University of Canton (southern China).

A stay scrutinized closely, because many observers fear that China will use this visit to clear itself of the accusations against it.

The Washington-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) human rights organization said in an open letter to Michelle Bachelet on Monday that her visit would be "carefully managed and choreographed" by Beijing.

"We fear (...) that you do not have free access to victims, witnesses, independent members of civil society" and that "your points of view are distorted by the Chinese government", underlines the NGO .

The United States, which accuses China of perpetrating "genocide" and criticizes Michelle Bachelet for her "persistent silence" in the face of "atrocities" committed by Beijing, said last week that it was "concerned" by this visit.

"We do not expect the People's Republic of China to guarantee the access necessary to conduct a full and candid assessment of the human rights situation in Xinjiang," US Foreign Affairs spokesman Ned Price said.

For Beijing, the camps are "vocational training centers"

Mostly Sunni Muslims, Uyghurs are the main ethnic group in Xinjiang, with a population of 26 million.

Western studies, based on interpretations of official documents, testimonies of presumed victims and statistical extrapolations, accuse Beijing of having interned at least a million people in "camps", of carrying out "forced" sterilizations or even to impose "forced labour".

China presents the camps as "vocational training centers" intended to fight against religious extremism and to train residents in a trade in order to develop employment and social stability.

Beijing also says not to impose any sterilization, but only to apply the policy of limiting births at work throughout the country, and which was little practiced previously in the region.

According to scholars and Uyghurs based abroad, however, Xinjiang authorities in recent years appear to have abandoned harsh crackdowns to focus on economic development.

"Now there is not much visible evidence of a repression," Peter Irwin of the Uyghur Human Rights Project told AFP.

Pervasive state surveillance and fear of reprisals could prevent Uyghurs on the ground from speaking freely to the UN team, human rights organizations say.

With AFP

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