The United Nations Human Rights Council has rejected a request to debate the situation in China’s Xinjiang region.
Last month, then-UN chief of human rights Michelle Bachelet wrote in a report that China had committed serious human rights violations there. Yet only 17 countries voted in favour of a debate and 19 against it.
Mostly Muslim Uyghurs live in Xinjiang and are the victims of oppression by the “extremely problematic” Chinese policy, according to the report. China is said to be carrying out large-scale and arbitrary detention of Muslims, and reports of systematic torture.
Some European governments and the US have now labelled the widely reported oppression in the Chinese region as genocide, as has the Dutch House of Representatives. China contradicts this and accuses Bachelet of allowing herself to be put under a Western cart.
After the report, the United States and a number of partner countries requested to discuss the situation alone, but that was rejected. Instead, China is said to have lobbied strongly for countries to vote against or abstain, according to diplomats.
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