Long road to UN rights chief’s Xinjiang report

Michelle Bachelet’s four years as the UN’s human rights chief have been marked by her handling of alleged abuses in Xinjiang and China’s treatment of the region’s Uyghur minority.

Her long-delayed report on the rights situation in China’s far-western region is due to be published on Wednesday — her last act in office before her mandate expires at the end of the month.

Only last week, the former Chilean president acknowledged that she had been under “tremendous pressure” over the report and gave no certainty as to when it might be released.

– The allegations –

The US government and lawmakers in a number of other Western countries have labelled China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang “genocide” — a charge Beijing vehemently denies.

Rights groups say at least one million people, mostly members of Muslim minorities, have been incarcerated in “re-education camps” in the region, and face widespread abuses, including forced sterilisation of women and coerced labour.

China says it is running vocational training centres designed to counter extremism.

– Build-up to report –

At a UN committee in August 2018, China was accused of turning Xinjiang into a giant internment camp.

Bachelet took office as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights weeks later, but did not mention those claims during her first speech on September 18.

The text of her address, sent to the media, did refer to the allegations, but she left the section out when delivering the speech.

In March 2019, she called for “full access to carry out an independent assessment of the continuing reports pointing to wide patterns of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions”.

Pressed by Western countries and non-governmental organisations to take a tougher line with Beijing, in February 2021 she urged a “comprehensive assessment of the human rights situation” in Xinjiang.

Seven months later, she announced that, pending significant access to Xinjiang, her office was “finalising its assessment of the available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in that region.”

The assessment was being done with “a view to making it public”, she said.

At the end of 2021, her office insisted that the report would be released in the coming weeks.

But its publication was repeatedly postponed.

– China trip –

For most of her term, Bachelet called for “meaningful and unfettered access” to Xinjiang.

But Beijing always stressed that it should not be a fact-finding mission but a “friendly visit”.

A six-day trip to China eventually took place in May 2022, marking the first visit by a UN rights chief in 17 years.

At its conclusion, Bachelet insisted that her trip was “not an investigation”, and said she had spoken with “candour” to the country’s leaders about their actions in Xinjiang.

Bachelet urged China to avoid “arbitrary and indiscriminate measures” in its crackdown in Xinjiang — but also said she recognised the damage caused by “violent acts of extremism”.

Organisations defending the Uyghurs slammed her remarks as too lenient.

She also faced criticism from the United States and major NGOs over her perceived lack of firmness with Beijing and for acting more like a diplomat than a global human rights champion.

– Waiting for the report –

Bachelet’s office has said little about the report and what it contains.

“The assessment has been prepared under the high commissioner’s global mandate for the promotion and protection of human rights,” a spokesman for her office told AFP in early August.

“Following allegations of human rights violations… an independent assessment was necessary.”

In late July, China’s mission in Geneva published an “open letter from nearly 1,000 NGOs opposing the release of the so-called assessment on Xinjiang”, calling on Bachelet’s office “to stand on the right side of history and not to release an assessment full of lies”.

In her farewell press conference on Thursday, Bachelet said she was “trying very hard” to release the report before leaving office, without detailing its contents.

And she did not mention the report at all when bidding farewell to diplomats at a UN Human Rights Council organisational meeting on Tuesday.