China's human rights record to be examined in UN review

Treatment of minorities, detentions and suppression of freedoms to be scrutinised
By Lily Kuo in Beijing

A protest against the Chinese government’s detention of Muslim minorities in September in India. 

China’s human rights record will be examined on Tuesday at a UN event expected to focus on Beijing’s treatment of ethnic minorities, detention of activists and suppression of religious and civil freedoms.
The process, known as a universal periodic review (UPR), takes place every five years for each UN member state. 

The country under review is meant to demonstrate how it has followed previous recommendations as well as answer questions from states, NGOs and others.
Advance questions from member states have focused on China’s treatment of ethnic minorities in East Turkestan, where an estimated 1 million ethnic Uighurs and others are detained in a network of internment camps.
Others raised questions about press freedoms in Hong Kong, where a journalist with the Financial Times was in effect expelled; the detention of Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai; and the detention of human rights defenders such as the lawyer Wang Quanzhang, the Uighur activist Ilham Tohti, and the dissident Huang Qi, who is believed to be suffering from chronic kidney disease, an accumulation of fluid in the brain, and heart disease.
On Monday, a group of 14 NGOs called on China to release Huang on the basis that there was an immediate threat to his life. 

According to the statement, authorities have repeatedly rejected applications for release on medical bail, allowing his health to deteriorate.
Critics say this year’s review highlights how China’s human rights record has deteriorated under the leadership of Xi Jinping. 

“What is most telling is that we are asking the same questions as we head into China’s third review. That some of the same issues are still coming up is a powerful statement of how little progress China has made,” said Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch.
Rights activists say China has sought to suppress the voices of dissidents at events on the global stage such as this. 

Fewer Chinese activists and NGOs are participating in the review process than in years past, in what some call the “Cao Shunli effect”, after the activist who was detained for participating in China’s UPR in 2009 and 2013. 

Cao died in a military hospital in 2014 after being denied treatment.
“All UN member states have an equal opportunity to press China on its egregious human rights record, and they shouldn’t waste it,” said John Fisher, the Geneva director at Human Rights Watch.
“Chinese activists have been imprisoned, tortured, and fatally mistreated for the chance to challenge Beijing over its human rights record.”

UK confirms reports of Chinese mass internment camps for Uighur Muslims

Criticism is mounting over reports of concentration camps in the western colony of East Turkestan

By Lily Kuo

 Several countries, including the UK, have asked Beijing about East Turkestan ahead of a UN panel review in November of China’s human rights record.

British diplomats who visited East Turkestan have confirmed that reports of mass internment camps for Uighur Muslims were “broadly true”, the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has told parliament.
Beijing faces mounting international criticism over its policies in East Turkestan, a far-western colony of China where an estimated 1 million members of Muslim minorities have been detained in a network of camps.
Hunt told parliament on Tuesday that diplomats had visited East Turkestan in August and “concur that those reports are broadly accurate”.
His comment puts pressure on Beijing before a UN human rights panel that will on 6 November review China’s human rights record. 

The UK, the US, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Norway, Germany and Belgium have asked about East Turkestan in questions submitted for China ahead of the process known as the universal periodic review (UPR).
Hunt said he had raised the issue with his Chinese counterpart, the foreign minister, Wang Yi, on a trip in July. 

“We continue to be extremely concerned about what is happening,” he said.
“A senior cabinet member raising the issue in parliament sends a message to China that the UK is serious about what’s happening in East Turkestan and China will likely hear more at the UPR,” said Frances Eve, a researcher at Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
Ahead of the panel, China has ramped up its defence of the camps, where ex-detainees have said they were abused, forced to learn Mandarin, as well as undergo political indoctrination.
After denying their existence, China has begun acknowledging them but described the camps as "vocational training centres" that embody the “humane management and care” of a campaign in the name of counter-"terrorism".