17 members voted in favour of the decision. (File)
United Nations/Geneva:
India on Thursday abstained from voting on a draft decision within the UN Human Rights Council on holding a debate on the human rights state of affairs in China’s restive Xinjiang area.
Human rights teams have been sounding the alarm over what is occurring within the resource-rich north-western Chinese province for years, alleging that multiple million Uyghurs had been detained towards their will in a big community of what Beijing calls “re-education camps”.
The draft decision on “holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China” was rejected within the 47-member Council after 17 members voted in favour, 19 members voted towards, together with China, and 11 abstentions, together with India, Brazil, Mexico and Ukraine.
The draft decision was offered by a core group consisting of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, UK and USA, and co-sponsored by a variety of states, together with Turkey.
China director at Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson, mentioned in a press release that for the primary time in its historical past, the UN’s high human rights physique thought of a proposal to debate the human rights state of affairs within the Xinjiang area of China.
“While the Council’s failure to adopt the proposal is an abdication of responsibility and a betrayal of Uyghur victims, the extremely close vote highlights the growing number of states willing to take a stand on principle and shine a spotlight on China’s sweeping rights violations,” Richardson mentioned.
Richardson famous that “nothing will erase the stain of China’s crimes against humanity, laid bare” by a current report of former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.
“We urge incoming High Commissioner Volker Turk to brief the Council on his office’s report, and we call on states, companies, and the international community to implement the report’s recommendations and hold Chinese authorities accountable for their international crimes,” Richardson added.
Serious allegations of human rights violations towards Uyghurs and different predominantly Muslim communities in China had been dropped at the eye of the UN Human Rights Office and UN human rights mechanisms since late 2017.