Human rights groups and Western states led by the US, Britain and Germany at a virtual meeting on Wednesday accused China of crimes against the Uighur minority.
China’s UN Mission last week sent notes to many of the UN’s 193 member nations urging them not to participate in the “anti-China event.”
Chinese Ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun (張軍) sent text messages to the 15 Western cosponsors of the meeting expressing shock at their support, urging them to “think twice” and withdraw it.
Photo: EPA-EFE
If they do not, it will be “harmful to our relationship and cooperation,” Zhang said.
At the meeting, British Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward called the situation in Xinjiang “one of the worst human rights crises of our time.”
“The evidence, from a growing number of credible sources — including satellite imagery, survivor testimony and publicly available Chinese government documents — is of grave concern,” Woodward said. “The evidence points to a program of repression of specific ethnic groups. Expressions of religion have been criminalized, and Uighur language and culture are discriminated against systematically and at scale.”
German Ambassador to the UN Christoph Heusgen thanked “all the cosponsors who came together, despite some massive Chinese threats.”
He urged them to remain committed “until the Uighurs can live again in freedom, until they are no longer detained, no longer victims of forced labor and other human rights abuses, until they can exercise freedom of religion and freedom of speech.”
Heusgen appealed to China to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “and tear down the detention camps.”
“If you have nothing to hide, why don’t you finally grant unimpeded access to the [UN] High Commissioner for Human Rights?” he asked.
Uighur human rights advocate Jewher Ilhan spoke about her father, Ilham Tohti, an economist who has called for autonomy for Xinjiang and is serving a life sentence on separatism charges.
“We don’t even know if he’s alive,” she said.
A Chinese envoy disputed the accusations.
“I make it clear that China is here to tell the truth, it doesn’t mean in any way we recognize this event,” the envoy said.
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