(TibetanReview.net, Oct24’24) –China has claimed support from more than 100 countries at the UN General Assembly committee meeting on human rights in New York City on Oct 22 for its position that any discussion of issues related to the human rights situation in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong are necessarily political, outside the ambit of the UN’s human rights promotion mandate.
China has in the past said that any such criticism, in the case of Tibet, would amount to supporting the latter’s independence campaign.
“These countries voiced support for China’s stance through joint statements and individual remarks at the United Nations, opposing the politicization of human rights issues,” said China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Oct 23.
The common threads running through the countries that delivered those statements are their own dire democracy and human rights deficits, close ties with China, and their willingness to acquiesce to Beijing’s dictates on the situation in Tibet, Xinjiang and Tibet.
In the general discussion of Item 71 Human Rights at the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly at its 79th session, Pakistan delivered a joint statement representing 80 countries including China, emphasizing that “Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Xizang related issues are China’s internal affairs,” the report said, using China’s Sinicized name for Tibet.
In a statement bearing the hallmarks of one which could also have been written by China itself, Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, has said in his purportedly joint statement, “We oppose politicization of human rights and double standards, or interference in states’ internal affairs under the pretext of human rights.”
Qatar, on behalf of the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, has delivered a joint statement supporting China, again bearing the hallmarks of one written by China, “emphasizing that human rights should be approached with objectivity, constructiveness, and non-politicization while respecting national sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs.”
The language employed in the statements delivered by Mauritania, speaking on behalf of Arab states, and Venezuela, representing the so-called Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, is no different.