UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s trip to China has ended. The visit was criticized for allowing China to use it as propaganda. At the same time, leaked documents from one of the concentration camps in China are receiving great attention.

Bachelet’s visit to China drew many criticisms before, during and after it.

Before the meeting, the Chinese authorities insisted that the meeting be “friendly” and also threatened Uyghurs living in other countries who asked Bachelet if she could obtain information on family members.

Human rights groups believe that more than one million Uighurs have been detained in China. The United States and other Western countries refer to the treatment of Uyghurs as genocide, but China denies the allegations, calling it the lie of the century.

Before the trip, the United States and several other countries, as well as Uyghurs in exile, believed that the visit was a miscalculation, and that Bachelet was misled and the truth was not shown by the Chinese authorities.

Bachelet: Not an investigation

Critics have instead pointed out that the strictly controlled visit has been undermined by China’s rejection of propaganda and blunders.

– All like-minded countries have similar views on the visit: it is a victory for China. A European diplomat in Beijing says the best thing she can do now is be open about the access she has financial times.

During the visit, she met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and had a virtual meeting with President Xi Jinping.

Bachelet said Saturday that the visit was not an investigation, and called on the government to review its handling of terrorism to ensure it complies with international human rights standards, Reuters and AFP write.

“This visit is already being used by China as propaganda to cover up their ongoing heinous crimes,” said Mehmet Tohti, executive director of the Ottawa-based Uyghur Rights Defense Project. New York times.

– Trap

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ trip to China is the first since 2005.

According to the newspaper, Bachelet has requested to visit the country since taking office in 2018 in connection with accusations of abuse against the Uighurs. China refused to visit if there was an investigation.

The director of the United Nations’ International Crisis Group, Richard Guan, said that China made the trip a “public relations root of the United Nations” and that Bachelet’s chances of improving the situation for the Uyghurs “perhaps 3 per cent,” the Financial Times wrote.

Juan stressed that the trip should be viewed in the same way that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with Russian President Vladimir Putin last month.

If the United Nations had not left, it would have been more detrimental to the remaining hope that the United Nations could do something of value.

Going to China, Juan believes that Bachelet is sacrificing herself, because they knew from the start that they would not be met with openness.

– It’s a trap. But it is a trap that Bachelet had to fall into.

Inside Chinese concentration camps

While Bachelet was in China, thousands of documents and photos were leaked from inside Chinese Uyghur concentration camps in Xinjiang Province.

The documents were obtained by a hacker from the police server.

The files document, among other things, how Chinese leaders are directly involved in the detention of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslims.

In the leak document, you also see photos from inside the camps for the first time.

Chinese authorities claim that these are centers where people receive job training and fight Islamic extremism. But human rights groups believe that these are camps where there are serious human rights abuses and forced labour.

China has denied these allegations, describing them as the lies of the century.

One file shows a letter by the local Communist Party leader, Chen Quanguo, ordering prisoners to shoot to kill anyone trying to escape.

China insists the camps teach Uyghurs and other Turkish minorities to be grateful and willing to distance them from the dangers of terrorism and extremism, he writes BBC.

The newspaper also contacted the Chinese authorities about the leaked documents and photos, and received a response from the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC.

In the face of the dangerous and complex anti-terror situation, Xinjiang has taken a number of decisive, strong and effective measures to combat extremism. As a result, Xinjiang has not witnessed a terrorist case for several consecutive years, the statement said, claiming that a large amount of false information has spread about the Xinjiang issue in recent years.

On Saturday, Bachelet said that Chinese authorities assured her that so-called Muslim minority retraining centers in Xinjiang, which human rights organizations classify as labor camps, have now been “closed”.