- International community ‘can no longer sit back and allow the Chinese authorities to trample on human rights’, deputy regional director for Amnesty International says
- Signatories decry the ‘racist treatment of people in China, or by Chinese state actors in other parts of the world’
More than 320 rights groups and other organisations called on the United Nations on Wednesday to launch an international investigation into Beijing’s human rights abuses, demanding “decisive action”.
In an open letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet as well as to member states, the 321 civil society groups called for international scrutiny of “the Chinese government’s human rights violations”.
“The international community can no longer sit back and allow the Chinese authorities to trample on human rights at home and abroad,” Joshua Rosenzweig, the deputy regional director for East and Southeast Asia for Amnesty International, which was one of the signatories, said in a joint statement.
In the letter, the NGOs pointed to an unprecedented call in June from dozens of independent UN experts for urgent action from the UN Human Rights Council to address the repression of fundamental freedoms in China.
The June statement highlighted rights violations in Hong Kong, Tibet and against Uygurs in Xinjiang, as well as suppression of vital information in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, and attacks on rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and government critics across the country.
And they charged that Beijing was working to “distort the mandate of the UN Human Rights Council … [by] opposing initiatives to bring scrutiny of serious rights violations and international crimes in countries around the world”.
Sarah Brooks of the International Service for Human Rights, which also signed Wednesday’s letter, said in the joint statement that “China’s disdain for human rights no longer affects only its citizens”.
When asked about the letter, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the “claims made by these organisations are groundless and not worth refuting”.