China sent a small army of Xinjiang officials to Geneva on Thursday to meet with a UN official and impress on the media its “truth” about what is happening in this province where Beijing is accused of crimes against humanity.
On the podium, five representatives from Xinjiang, including Xu Guixiang, director of information for this region, an imam and a university official to almost line by line counter the report by the High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. She accuses China of persecuting minorities in Xinjiang and, first of all, the Uyghurs.
“Faced with the misunderstandings in the report (from the UN, editor’s note), we want to restore the truth and clarify the facts,” said Xu Guixiang, at the opening of what had been presented as a press conference.
In this document, the UN does not speak of genocide but evokes possible “crimes against humanity” and “credible evidence” of torture and sexual violence and calls on the international community to act.
Accusations of persecution of the Uyghurs
Representatives of Xinjiang have alternately countered the accusations of the UN and human rights organizations, repeating again and again the arguments already put forward by Beijing or listing long series of statistics on population growth in Xinjiang to show that minorities do not they are discriminated against.
A meeting with the interim High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nada Al-Nashif, is scheduled, said a UN spokeswoman contacted by AFP.
For several years, China has been accused – with material evidence and supporting documents – by Western countries and human rights organizations of having imprisoned more than a million Uighurs and other members of Muslim minorities, including Kazakhs, in Xinjiang in camps. . Beijing rejects these accusations, claiming to fight terrorism and ensure the development of the region.
Relations between China and the UN have soured since Michelle Bachelet published her report in extremis, a few minutes after the end of her term, and despite enormous pressure from Beijing to bury her.
China fears a resolution
China is currently putting significant pressure on countries behind the scenes in Geneva to counter any move against it.
Beijing fears that countries will present a draft resolution at the current session of the Human Rights Council to investigate allegations of violations in Xinjiang.
“We are not afraid,” Xu Guixian said. “We are ready to fight,” he said, before calling on international organizations, including the United Nations human rights bodies, to “investigate past disasters and numerous crimes committed by the United States and other Western countries.”
Source: BFM TV
