The UN’s top human rights body has given an updated assessment two years after its damning review of the human rights situation in China.
Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the commission sent a team to China in June that “engaged in dialogue with the authorities,” focusing on the country’s criminal justice system and counter-terrorism policies.
In particular, the mission sought to find out more about human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where China is accused of systemic human rights violations and oppression against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other majority-Muslim ethnic groups, as well as ongoing suppression of freedoms in Tibet and Hong Kong.
Uyghur and anti-Chinese Communist Party demonstrators hold signs outside the Adelaide Zoo on June 16 in Adelaide, Australia, to protest Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit. The UN’s top human rights body has expressed concern over “many problematic laws and policies” impacting the human rights situation in China.
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Shamdasani said the group determined that “many problematic laws and policies remain in place.”
The spokesperson emphasized that allegations of human rights abuses, such as torture, should be thoroughly investigated and said the office would continue to “closely follow the current human rights situation in China” despite restrictions on their access to information and locals’ fear of government punishment for contact with the UN.
“We have called again on the authorities to undertake a full review, from the human rights perspective, of the legal framework governing national security and counter-terrorism and to strengthen the protection of minorities against discrimination,” she added.
The statement has drawn the ire of Beijing, which accused the group of impartiality aimed at smearing the East Asian country.
“China always puts the people front and center in all our work, views respecting and protecting human rights as an important part of governance, and has made historic achievements in this aspect,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a Wednesday press briefing.
“Xinjiang today enjoys social stability and economic growth, and the people there live a happy life,” he stated. He called on the OHCHR to remain impartial, respect “countries’ sovereignty” and “facts,” and “refrain from being used by political forces aiming to contain and vilify China.”
The recent OHCHR visit to China follows up on the report published in August 2022 by the U.N.’s former top human rights official, Michelle Bachelet, which China and several other countries lobbied to prevent from being released. The document urged U.N. member states not to return Muslim minorities at risk of persecution to China.
The OHCHR did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.
Human rights groups estimate that China has detained as many as 1 million Uyghurs and other minorities in internment camps. An independent tribunal in 2021 determined that the Chinese government was guilty of cultural genocide through systematic forced birth control and mass sterilization campaigns in the far-west region.
China has vehemently denied these claims, with the Chinese embassy in the U.S. previously telling Newsweek that the camps are “vocational education and training centers.”
The 2022 report concurred with the findings of governments and human rights organizations that “large-scale arbitrary deprivation of liberty” had taken place between at least 2017 and 2019.
Despite widespread human rights concerns, China was elected to a second term on the U.N.’s Human Rights Council in October.
