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Exclusive | China says UN human rights chief can visit Xinjiang ‘after Olympics’
- Sources say Michelle Bachelet can make the trip in first half of 2022 but it should be ‘friendly’ in nature and not framed as an investigation
- Beijing is also understood to have pressed for a delay in release of OHCHR report on the region until the Games have wrapped up
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China has agreed to host a visit to Xinjiang by UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet “in the first half of the year after the Beijing Winter Olympics”, according to people familiar with the situation.
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The UN’s top human rights official has been negotiating with Beijing since September 2018 for a visit to Xinjiang, where some 1 million Uygurs are alleged to have been held in mass detention camps.
Sources said Bachelet recently secured Beijing’s approval for a visit to the region sometime after the Games, which open on February 4, on the prerequisite that the trip should be “friendly” in nature and not framed as an investigation.
Beijing also insisted that Bachelet’s office hold off on publishing a report into Xinjiang ahead of the Games, as requested by Washington, the sources said.
“After recent rounds of discussions with Bachelet and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, China has agreed to host Bachelet in the first half of the year after the Beijing Winter Olympics,” said one of the sources, who asked not to be identified.
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“But China has also said the bottom line is that the OHCHR should not publish the Xinjiang report,” the source added.
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