The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, confessed on Thursday that the pressure not to publish a report on human rights in China has been very strong, but assured that none of this will dissuade her body from disclosing it.
The report focuses on the human rights situation of the Uyghurs, a minority settled in the northwestern province of Xinjiang and that the Chinese government has repressed for decades because it considers it to be a breeding ground for extremism, to the point that in 2018 he discovered that he had created gigantic internment camps to “re-educate” them.
Bachelet acknowledged that she had received a letter signed by some forty countries asking her not to publish the report that her office has been preparing for a couple of years on this situation and whose preparation was delayed when the Chinese government accepted that the high commissioner visit the country last May.
According to Bachelet, this visit was a priority because it was a unique opportunity to see first-hand what was happening in the country and to have direct contact with relatives of Uyghurs who were or are in these internment camps.
The high commissioner said that at the same time she had had “an enormous number of meetings” with representatives of countries that asked her to publish the aforementioned report as soon as possible, which she promised several months ago that she would do before concluding her mandate at the head of the largest international human rights structure and that expires on the 31st.
At a press conference in which she took stock of her management, Bachelet indicated that the comments made by the Chinese Government to the report are being reviewed, a common procedure for this type of publication and with which it seeks to correct inaccuracies or assess measures that might not have been taken into account.
“The issues (contained in the report) are serious and are thoroughly analyzed,” Bachelet advanced, following assuring that she will try to honor her promise to bring it to light before saying goodbye to her position.
“The pressures will not define how things will be,” he assured.