China Condemned for HR Violations at the UN

By Tenzin Samten / March 25, 2021;

The 46th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council which concluded on March 23 saw representatives of several countries expressing concern over systematic human rights violations against Chinese ruled ethnic minorities, including Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians and Hong Kongers. The Tibet Bureau Geneva reports that these representatives were from the United States, Canada, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands.

The European Union High Representative and the Vice-President of the European Commission issued a statement during the session, calling on China to comply with its obligations under national and international law to respect and to protect human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities in East Turkestan[Ch: Xinjiang], Tibet and Inner Mongolia, and urged them to allow independent, impartial and transparent assessment of the grave concerns of the international community.

“We condemn China’s abuse of members of ethnic and religious minority groups, including crimes against humanity and genocide in Xinjiang and severe restrictions in Tibet,” said Mark Cassayre, the Deputy Chief of the US Mission, Geneva.

Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, former President of the UN Human Rights Council and Austria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Geneva has urged the Chinese government to allow meaningful access to Tibet and China for independent observers. She highlighted the issues of human right violations in Tibet interms of freedom of religion, freedom of movement or association and freedom of expression.

Highlighting the use of sexual and gender based violence in repression and ethnic cleansing, Kirsti Kauppi, Finland’s UN Permanent Representative, expressed concerns over “the grave and accumulating repression” against ethnic minorities in China,including Uyghurs and Tibetans. She brought up the issue of “the arbitrary detentions and unfounded trials of human rights defenders, lawyers, and journalists.”

Other representatives have called for the closure of re-education facilities – the institutions set up for ethnic minorities from Tibet and Xinjiang.

Xinhua, China’s state-run media, reports that allegations against China on human rights are baseless and are raised out of political motivations. The report further stated that Xinjiang and Hong Kong are China’s internal affairs and asked countries to stop interfering.