(TibetanReview.net, Apr29’25) – China has been flooding the UN, including its Human Rights Council in Geneva, with an army of fake NGOs to monitor and intimidate rights activists as well as to defend and heap glowing praises on Beijing’s human rights record, reported the AFP Apr 28, citing a new investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published Apr 28.
The investigation, dubbed as “China Targets”, involves 42 media organisations and delves into the various tactics Beijing uses to silence critics beyond its borders, the report said.
One segment of the investigation’s probe deals with China’s increasing offensive at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, with focus on the growing presence there of pro-China, government-organised non-governmental organisations, referred to, often derisively, as “Gongos”.
Such groups are found to crowd into council sessions to praise China and present glowing accounts of its actions that are largely at odds with UN and expert findings of widespread rights violations and repression.
For example, a bombshell report published by former UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet in 2022 for instance cited possible “crimes against humanity” against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang (East Turkestan), the report pointed out.
Other more recent UN expert reports have highlighted the forced separation of Tibetan children from their families with a view to Sinicize them and the targeting of democracy activists in Hong Kong.
But when legitimate NGOs raise such issues at the council, Gongos often strive to disrupt the session and drown out their testimonies, the ICIJ report is cited as saying.
* * *
An ICIJ analysis of 106 NGOs from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan registered with the UN has found that 59 had close links to the government in Beijing or the Chinese Communist Party.
The report points out that during a regular review of China’s rights record before the council last year, more than half of the NGOs granted a speaking slot were pro-government groups.
“It’s corrosive. It’s dishonest,” Michele Taylor, who served as US ambassador to the Human Rights Council from 2022 until January this year, was quoted as saying in the report.
She has decried a broader effort by Beijing “to obfuscate their own human rights violations and reshape the narrative”.
***
Increasingly, the Beijing-controlled groups are also found by the ICIJ report to be used to monitor and intimidate those planning to testify about alleged abuses by China.
A total of 15 activists and lawyers focused on rights issues in China spoken to by ICIJ have “described being surveilled or harassed by people suspected to be proxies for the Chinese government”.
Such incidents were stated to have occurred both inside the UN and elsewhere in Geneva.
On one occasion, four people claiming to work with a “Guangdong Human rights Association” tried to barge into a secret meeting a group of intimidated Chinese activists and dissidents had with the UN rights chief Volker Turk in March last year, facilitated by a group called International Service for Human Rights (ISHR). Though turned away, the four waited outside to take photo of those who later came out of the meeting before leaving in a black car with tinted windows, the point being to intimidate the activists, the report said.
Over a decade ago, activist Cao Shunli was detained as she attempted to travel to Geneva ahead of a China rights record review at the UN. She was held without charge until she fell gravely ill and died on Mar 14, 2014.
A decade later, Chinese rights defenders are participating in UN activities at record low numbers, the investigation has found.
At the same time, the number of Chinese NGOs registered with the UN has nearly doubled since 2018, the report is cited as saying.