(TibetanReview.net, Nov01’22) – China has on Oct 31 expressed bitter anger at the US, Canada and other countries for raising the serious human rights situation in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong at the Third Committee of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York City.
The Third Committee is one of six main committees at the General Assembly of the United Nations. It deals with human rights, humanitarian affairs and social matters and meets every year in early October with aims to finish its work by the end of November.
China’s anger particularly stemmed from the fact that 50 mainly Western countries urged it to fully implement all recommendations in a UN report accusing it of possible “crimes against humanity” against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups, including taking prompt steps to release all those “arbitrarily deprived of their liberty” in the far western province of Xinjiang.
Responding to it, Dai Bing, chargés d’affaires at the Chinese Permanent Mission to the United Nations, has claimed, “No matter how those countries, the US in particular, hype up the stories they fabricated to keep the farcical show going, they cannot obliterate the progress of the human rights cause in China’s Xinjiang region, which is a fact and the truth.”
And Cuba, on behalf of 66 countries, spoke in support of China at the Oct 31 meeting, reported China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Nov 1.
The Cuban statement was reported to have said that issues related to Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet are China’s internal affairs and expressed opposition to the politicization of human rights and double standards, or interference in China’s affairs under the pretext of human rights. This is a regurgitation of Beijing’s response whenever it is asked to account for its records of systemic violations in these territories and in China proper as well.
Saudi Arabia, speaking on behalf of six Gulf states, and Yemen and Libya, was also stated to have supported China’s position. So also Venezuela on behalf of 19 member states of what was described as the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the UN.
The report further said the statement of the Non-Aligned Movement made at the Third Committee on behalf of 120 developing countries also supported China’s position.
The above countries were reported to have supported China despite the fact that human rights groups have accused Beijing of sweeping a million or more people from the Uyghur and other minority groups in Xinjiang into detention camps where many have said they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion. The camps were just one part of what the rights organizations have called a ruthless campaign against extremism in Xinjiang that also included draconian birth control policies and all-encompassing restrictions on people’s movement, noted the AP Oct 31.
An assessment from the office of the Geneva-based UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released in the final minutes of Michelle Bachelet’s four-year term on Aug 31, it was pointed out, largely corroborated earlier reporting by researchers, advocacy groups and the news media.
The UN report concluded that China had committed serious human rights violations under its anti-terrorism and anti-extremism policies and called for “urgent attention” from the UN, the world community and China itself to address them.
The statement from the 50 countries called the UN report “an independent, authoritative assessment that relies extensively on China’s own records” and “makes an important contribution to the existing evidence of serious and systematic human rights violations in China.”