GENEVA – The UN Human Rights Council yesterday voted against holding a debate on alleged abuses in Xinjiang in a major setback for Western nations.
The United States and its allies last month presented the first-ever draft decision to the UN’s top rights body targeting China, seeking a bare minimum of holding a discussion on Xinjiang.
The move came after former UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet released her long-delayed Xinjiang report last month, citing alleged crimes against humanity against Uygurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s far-western autonomous region.
But following intense lobbying by Beijing, countries on the 47-member council in Geneva voted 19-17 against holding a debate, with 11 countries abstaining.
The nations voting against having a discussion were Bolivia, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Gabon, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Mauritania, Namibia, Nepal, Pakistan, Qatar, Senegal, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Uzbekistan, and Venezuela.
Those abstaining were Argentina, Armenia, Benin, Brazil, Gambia, India, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, and Ukraine.
Chinese Ambassador Chen Xu said the push to discuss the issue was “taking advantage” of the United Nations “to interfere in China’s internal affairs”.
“The draft decision is not pro-human rights but for political manipulation,” he told the council.
“Today China is targeted; tomorrow any other developing country could be targeted.”
The draft decision was put forward by the United States, Australia, Britain and Canada, among others.
Western allies had been scrambling for support in the run-up to yesterday’s vote at the UN Palais des Nations.
Beijing vehemently rejected the Bachelet report’s allegations and accused the UN of becoming a “thug and accomplice of the US and the West”.
It insists that Xinjiang is running vocational training centres in the region to counter extremism, separatism and terrorism.
A Portuguese- and English-language media delegation from Macau visited Xinjiang at the invitation of the Macau-based Foreign Ministry Commission last month. Its participants described the weeklong tour as an eyeopener that showed them the vast region’s social and economic progress and multiethnic unity.
– AFP, MPD
