On sidelines of U.N., a push for China's abuses to be punished

Diplomats and human rights advocates speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly are calling for forceful action on China's alleged persecution of ethnic minorities

The United Nations will be judged by how it addresses China’s persecution of ethnic minorities, diplomats and human rights advocates charged Monday on the sidelines of the body’s General Assembly, calling for forceful action after a report raised the specter of “crimes against humanity.”

For years, rights watchdogs and journalists have exposed brutal treatment of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the far western region of Xinjiang, where China is accused of a ruthless campaign of torture, sexual assault and ethnic cleansing. Those accusations have been widely accepted in the West, but were given a new imprimatur with the landmark report released last month by the U. N. human rights office.

“Inaction is no longer possible,” Fernand de Varennes, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on minority rights said at a forum sponsored by the Atlantic Council and Human Rights Watch as world leaders descend on New York. “If we allow this to go unpunished, what kind of message is being propagated?”

Jeffrey Prescott, a deputy U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, suggested the integrity of the institution was at stake in its response to China.

“How these atrocities are addressed goes ultimately to the credibility of that system, to the credibility of our international system itself,” he said. “It’s deeply disheartening to see a country that has been so central to the creation of the modern U. N. system, and enjoys its status as a permanent member of the Security Council, so profoundly violating its commitments.”

The U. N. report on China’s alleged abuses was released in the final minutes of the last day in office of Michele Bachelet, now the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Its release was believed to have been long delayed. Ms. Bachelet never explained the timing.

China responded to its release with fury, calling it “a patchwork of false information" and portraying it as a fabrication cooked up by Western nations. It issued a lengthy rebuttal and vowed to stop cooperating with the U. N.’s human rights office, and Chinese diplomats are now lobbying others to thwart the possibility of further scrutiny of its campaign in Xinjiang.