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U.S. lawmakers call for U.N. Uyghur rights report before China’s Olympics -Breaking

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© Reuters. FILEPHOTO: A sunbeam appears behind the United Nations Secretariat Building in New York City. It is June 18, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters] – U.S. lawmakers pressed Tuesday the United Nations’ Human Rights Office to provide an assessment of China’s policies regarding Xinjiang ahead next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics. This is despite the fact that the U.S. is currently boycotting at a diplomatic level due to what it claims is continuing genocide in this region.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has lamented https://www.reuters.com/world/china/un-rights-chief-regrets-lack-access-xinjiang-2021-09-13 that her office has been unable to gain access to the western Chinese region to probe allegations of rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.

After long negotiations with Chinese officials over a planned visit, Her Office stated in December it was preparing a report regarding the situation of Xinjiang.

Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative James McGovern, two Democrats who respectively chair and co-chair the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, wrote a public letter to Bachelet asking her to issue the report before the “international spectacle” of the Beijing Games begins on Feb. 4.

Merkley said that McGovern’s publication of it would serve as a reminder to the international community about countries engaging in grave human rights violations.

Bachelet’s office didn’t immediately reply to Reuters’ question about when the report will be made public.

Bachelet had been negotiating with Xinjiang since September 2018 as it emerged that approximately one million Uyghurs might have been detained in camps.

China claims there was no wrongdoing at Xinjiang and that the camps were set up to provide vocational training as well as an opportunity for religious extremism.

To protest China’s violations of human rights, many US allies and Canada have vowed not to send diplomatic representatives to the Games.

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