The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle – between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other – for global support over the fate of Ukraine, as the global south fights to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of famine and the climate crisis. With a return to fully in-person general debate, presidents and prime ministers will be converging on New York, many of them direct from London, where the diplomacy got under way on the sidelines…
Tag: United Nations
West weighs calling for China Uyghur abuses inquiry at UN
Western powers are weighing the risk of a potential defeat if they table a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council calling for an independent commission to investigate alleged human rights abuses by China in Xinjiang. The issue is a litmus case for Chinese influence at the UN, as well as the willingness of the UN to endorse a worldview that protects individual rights from authoritarian states. The outgoing UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, issued a report on her last day in office – 31 August – claiming there…
Volker Türk, an Austrian Diplomat, Takes U.N. Human Rights Post
GENEVA — A week after Michelle Bachelet stepped down as the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, the U.N. has approved Volker Türk, an Austrian who is a trusted adviser to the secretary general, to take on the notoriously challenging job. The secretary general, António Guterres, forwarded the name of Mr. Türk late on Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly, which approved the appointment without a vote on Thursday. Mr. Türk, 57, is not widely known outside the United Nations, but he was seen as the front-runner in a…
New Zealand’s shadow foreign affairs spokesperson faces criticism for response to UN report on Uyghurs
New Zealand’s shadow foreign affairs spokesperson said a UN report on the human rights abuses of Uyghurs includes recognition that China is “dealing with a terrorist problem essentially”, in remarks criticised by China analysts. “It’s good that it acknowledges that there has been a terrorism problem in the particular part of China that the report is on,” Gerry Brownlee, a lawmaker for the centre-right National party, told Radio New Zealand (RNZ) on Thursday in an interview about the UN findings. In the damning report, the outgoing UN human rights commissioner,…
Lawyer criticises UN report’s failure to call Uyghur oppression ‘genocide’
The UN’s failure to mention the word genocide in its report alleging serious human rights violations by China against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province is an “astonishing” lapse, according to a leading British human rights lawyer. The 45-page report from the outgoing UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, landed minutes before her term ended on Wednesday, outlining allegations of torture, including forced medical procedures, as well as sexual violence against Uyghur Muslims. The report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), concluded the “arbitrary and discriminatory”…
Rights groups call for inquiries into Uyghur abuses in China after damning UN report
Governments around the world should establish formal independent investigations into human rights abuses in Xinjiang, victims and human rights groups have said, after the 11th-hour release of a long-awaited UN report. The report by the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) was published minutes before Michele Bachelet ended her tenure. The Chinese government had sought to prevent its release, and rights groups were apprehensive after Bachelet’s visit to Xinjiang in May concluded with a statement that many said supported Beijing’s narrative. But Wednesday’s report was damning.…
China’s treatment of Uyghurs may be crime against humanity, says UN human rights chief
The outgoing UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, has said that China had committed “serious human rights violations” against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province which may amount to crimes against humanity. Bachelet’s damning report was published with only 11 minutes to go before her term came to an end at midnight Geneva time. Publication was delayed by the eleventh-hour delivery of an official Chinese response that contained names and pictures of individuals that had to be blacked out by the UN commissioner’s office for privacy and safety reasons. The Chinese…
U.N. Report on Xinjiang Human Rights May Be Delayed Again
GENEVA — The United Nations top human rights official, Michelle Bachelet, has signaled that she might not release a long-awaited report about allegations of abuses in China’s far western region of Xinjiang before she leaves office next week, as she had promised. The delay of that report, which Beijing has worked to block, has already exposed her to fierce criticism from human rights groups. Four years after academics, activists and independent U.N. experts first sounded the alarm over reports that China had arbitrarily detained more than a million Uyghurs and…
West demands publication of UN’s long-awaited Xinjiang report
Pressure to release a long-awaited Xinjiang report is mounting on the UN’s rights head, as her recent six-day visit to China left activists, western governments and commentators unsatisfied. The report, which Michelle Bachelet said was being finalised late last year, is believed to contain evidence of China’s alleged human rights abuses of its Uyghur ethnic minority group in Xinjiang. In a press conference on Saturday, Bachelet promised to “follow up” on instances of China’s human rights abuse, calling for the authorities in Beijing to review their counter-terrorism policies in the…
Bachelet’s Xinjiang visit is emblematic of the growing divide between China and the west
UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet’s six-day trip to China began with some controversy, and ended with even more. On Saturday, western journalists left the virtual press conference without satisfying answers. Some complained Bachelet had dwelled too much on the US’s human rights problems but not China’s. Knowing a top envoy from the UN would be restrained in her tone and delivery, Beijing took the occasion to say Bachelet’s trip was an opportunity “to observe and experience first-hand the real Xinjiang”. State media claimed that Bachelet had expressed “admiration” for China’s…