Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet: UN experts denounce Beijing's crackdown

Some 50 experts are calling on the UN Human Rights Council to act. Beijing must cancel the security law. The group speaks out against the “collective repression of the population,” including the abduction of human rights defenders, forced labour camps, censorship, privacy violations, and abuses and detention of journalists and medical staff who dared to talk about the coronavirus epidemic.

Geneva (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Scores of independent UN experts have called on the UN Human Rights Council to take urgent action to stop China’s repression against the fundamental freedoms of its population, in particular in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet.

In a statement released yesterday, around 50 rapporteurs and other experts denounce "the repression of protest and democracy advocacy" in Hong Kong, urging Beijing to drop its national security law for the territory.

They also denounced "impunity for excessive use of force by police, the alleged use of chemical agents against protesters, the alleged sexual harassment and assault of women protesters in police stations and the alleged harassment of health care workers."

The experts, who do not speak for the United Nations but report their findings to it, say that "it is time for renewed attention on the human rights situation in the country" in light of the "moves against" the people in Hong Kong, the repression in Xinjiang, where a million Uyghur men are held in forced labour camps, as well as what the Dalai Lama calls the “cultural genocide” taking place in Tibet.

Specifically, the experts have "grave concern" over the "collective repression of the population,” the abduction of human rights defenders, the forced labour camps, the arbitrary violations of people’s privacy and its censorious cyber-security laws.

They also lament that the journalists, doctors and nurses who raised the alarm over the COVID-19 outbreak in China have been silence or detained by the authorities.

• china
• united nations
• hong kong
• tibet
• xinjiang
• east turkestan
• repression
• oppression
• cultural genocide
• colonialism
• forced labour camps
• uighurs