BEIJING: China has agreed to let the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights visit Xinjiang in the first half of 2022 after the Beijing Winter Olympics, according to a report in the South China Morning Post which cited unnamed sources.
Rights groups have accused China of perpetrating widescale abuses against Uyghurs and other minority groups in its western region of Xinjiang, including mass detention, torture and forced labor. The United States has accused China of genocide.
Beijing denies all allegations of abuse of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims and has described its policies as necessary to combat religious extremism.
UN human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet has been pursuing negotiations with China on a visit since September 2018.
China’s foreign ministry, China’s mission to the United Nations in New York, and the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The South China Morning Post report on Thursday cited sources saying that the approval for a visit after the conclusion of the Beijing Winter Games, which run Feb. 4-20, was granted on the condition the trip should be “friendly” and not framed as an investigation.
As in 2008, the Olympics have again cast a spotlight on China’s human rights record, which critics say has worsened since then, leading Washington to call Beijing’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims genocide and prompting a diplomatic boycott from the United States and other countries.
“No one, especially the world’s leading human rights diplomat, should be fooled by the Chinese government’s efforts to distract attention away from its crimes against humanity targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic communities,” Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters in an emailed statement on Friday.
China agrees to Xinjiang visit by UN rights chief in early 2022 — report
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China agrees to Xinjiang visit by UN rights chief in early 2022 — report
- Rights groups have accused China of perpetrating widescale abuses against Uyghurs and other minority groups in its western region of Xinjiang
Bus with Chinese tourists crashes through ice on Russia’s Lake Baikal, killing 8
- One of the Chinese tourists managed to escape from the bus
- The bus plunged into a 3-meter (10-foot) -wide ice crevasse
MOSCOW: A tour bus carrying Chinese tourists plunged through the ice on Russia’s Lake Baikal, killing eight people, officials said.
One of the Chinese tourists managed to escape from the bus, which was crossing the frozen lake on Friday, Irkutsk regional Gov. Igor Kobzev wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday. He said the dead included seven Chinese tourists and the driver.
The bus plunged into a 3-meter (10-foot) -wide ice crevasse, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry reported. The lake is 18 meters (59 feet) deep at the site of the accident, it said. The ministry said rescuers used underwater cameras before embarking on a diving operation.
The regional prosecutor’s office said a criminal probe had been opened. The Irkutsk tourism office reported on Saturday that the bus tour had been run by an unregistered operator.
Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake, is one of Russia’s key tourism attractions. Numbers of Chinese visitors to the country soared in recent years, after Moscow and Beijing introduced a mutual visa-free regime.
