UN official accused of legitimising China’s detention of Uighur Muslims by visiting Xinjiang province
Vladimir Voronkov becomes highest-level UN official to visit restive region
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A visit by the UN’s counterterrorism chief to China’s western Xinjiang region has sparked outrage from human rights groups who say it legitimises Beijing’s treatment of more than one million Uighur Muslims detained there.
Beijing has long argued that its use of detention centres in the region is justified in order to help stamp out extremism and give people new skills. But the complexes have seen China condemned internationally, with accusations of widespread abuses, disappearances and arbitrary detentions targeting the Muslim community.
The UN’s high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, requested permission to visit Xinjiang and assess the situation in December. On Thursday, China’s envoy to the UN in Geneva said they were yet “to define a time which is convenient to both sides”.
Yet it seems a convenient time was found for a trip by Vladimir Voronkov, a former Russian diplomat and the UN’s undersecretary general for counterterrorism. His visit, first reported by Foreign Policy magazine and later confirmed by a UN spokesperson, sees him become the highest-level UN official to visit the restive region.
Details of Mr Voronkov’s itinerary were not immediately revealed, but UN spokesperson Farhan Haq did issue a statement saying the UN’s counterterrorism office always worked to ensure that measures used to fight terror respected human rights.
Louis Charbonneau, the UN director for Human Rights Watch, told Foreign Policy that Mr Voronkov’s visit was “handing China a propaganda victory”.
“The UN allowing its counterterrorism chief to go to Xinjiang risks confirming China’s false narrative that this is a counterterrorism issue, not a question of massive human rights abuses,” he said.
And Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein of Jordan, the former UN human rights commissioner who clashed with China on a number of occasions, said a simple government-controlled visit to Xinjiang would be “quite useless, rais[ing] dramatically the possibility of staging and whitewash”.
The UN formally raised concerns over the human rights situation in Xinjiang during a visit by secretary general Antonio Guterres to China in May. At the request of some western countries, he told China’s prime minister that rights in Xinjiang “must be respected”.
China insisted on Thursday that an invitation to rights chief Ms Bachelet “is always there”, with envoy Chen Xu praising her approach of “dialogue and cooperation” and contrasting it to that of her predecessor Prince Zeid.
“We hope to see the high commissioner pay a visit to China including a trip to Xinjiang to see by herself ... Seeing is believing,” Mr Chen told a news conference.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments