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By Emma Farge
GENEVA, Dec 9 (Reuters) – U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said on Friday he wanted to engage with Beijing over the findings of a report issued by his predecessor that said China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslims in its Xinjiang region may constitute crimes against humanity.
Grappling with the human rights record of China, a permanent member of the United Nations’ Security Council, is one of the thorniest among dozens of human rights challenges facing the new high commissioner since he started in October.
Beijing
pressured
Turk’s predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, not to publish the report, Reuters revealed, and she only did so in the final minutes of her term.
“The report that was issued on 31 August is a very important one and has highlighted very serious human rights concerns,” Turk told a Geneva news briefing in his first public comments on the matter since taking office.
“I will personally continue engaging with the (Chinese) authorities. I’m very determined to do so,” he said. “Hope springs eternal.”
China, which denies the Xinjiang allegations, has previously indicated that it would close the door to cooperation with the U.N. human rights office after the report’s release.
A Western-led effort to launch a debate on the Xinjiang report at the Human Rights Council
failed in October
amid heavy lobbying against it from China.
The High Commissioner plays a critical role in speaking out against backsliding on freedoms at a time when autocracies are gaining influence worldwide at the expense of democracies.
Turk is a former under-secretary general for policy under UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Some early critics of his appointment had assumed that Turk would adopt the quiet tactics of his former boss.
However, the Austrian has since shown a willingness to publicly criticise Iran for its “unnecessary and disproportionate use of force” against protesters, and has taken the Taliban to task for what he described on Friday as the “
systematic exclusion
” of women and girls in Afghanistan.
Turk has also undertaken trips to Sudan and Ukraine, where he released a report on
killings
of hundreds of civilians by Russian forces in the early days of Moscow’s invasion. (Reporting by Emma Farge Editing by Miranda Murray and Gareth Jones)
