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UNITED NATIONS: The United States, Japan and many EU nations joined in a call on Tuesday (October 6) to urge China to respect the human rights of the Uighur minority, and also expressed concern about the situation in Hong Kong.
“We call on China to respect human rights, particularly the rights of people belonging to religious and ethnic minorities, especially in Xinjiang and Tibet,” said German UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, who led the initiative during a meeting on human rights.
Among the 39 signatory countries were the United States, most of the EU member states, including Albania and Bosnia, as well as Canada, Haiti, Honduras, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
“We are deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Xinjiang and the recent events in Hong Kong,” the statement said.
“We call on China to allow immediate, meaningful and unrestricted access to Xinjiang for independent observers, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,” he added.
Immediately afterwards, the envoy for Pakistan stood up and read a statement signed by 55 countries, including China, denouncing any use of the situation in Hong Kong as an excuse to interfere in China’s internal affairs.
Addressing Germany, the United States and Britain, Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun criticized what he called their “hypocritical” attitude and demanded that the three countries “drop their arrogance and prejudice, and step away from the edge, now.
READ: Western views on China hit new lows amid COVID-19 pandemic
Human Rights Watch praised the fact that so many countries signed the declaration “despite persistent threats and intimidation tactics by China against those who speak out.”
In 2019, a similar text written by Great Britain only got 23 signatures.
Western diplomats have said that China is mounting more pressure each year to dissuade UN member states from signing such declarations, threatening to block the renewal of peacekeeping missions for some countries or preventing others from building new embassies. in China.
On Monday, China led a group of 26 countries in a joint statement calling for an end to US sanctions that they said violate human rights during the fight to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, the Australian Institute for Strategic Policy (ASPI) said it had identified more than 380 “suspected detention centers” in the Xinjiang region, where China is believed to have more than one million Uighurs and other Turkish-speaking residents. , mostly Muslim.
In the United States, the House of Representatives passed a bill in late September that aims to ban imports from Xinjiang, claiming that abuses by the Uighur people are so widespread that all goods in the region should be considered hand-made. of slave work.
