By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, APR 8: China’s appointment in the Consultative group of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), an organ of the UN General Assembly, drew scores of criticism amid claims of silencing doctors and media during the ongoing outbreak worldwide. Jiang Duan, a Chinese mission official in Geneva was nominated and elected for the post from regional Asian grouping on Apr. 1.
China has been one of the consistent members of the council as it previously held a seat as a UNHRC member from 2006 to 2019 on four consecutive terms. The appointment raises concern as the panel oversees recommendations for UN Human Rights experts and China has repeatedly denied basic freedom to Uyghurs, Tibetans, HongKongers, and other ethnic minorities.
The consultative panel exercises power over recommending candidates according to directives of “Special Procedures”, “Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”, and the “Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Development”. It consists of five ambassadors, each representing five UN regional groups.
There has been an international outcry about human rights in China after the strict measures taken during the COVID-19 outbreak. Dr. Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who succumbed to his infection to Covid-19, tried to warn the world about coronavirus but authorities summoned and compelled him to sign a statement his warning was “illegal behaviour”. Other reports of disinformation spread by the Chinese media have been surging over the internet, accusing China of mishandling the crisis.
U.S. Representative Chris Smith, a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and ranking member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, condemned Jiang Duan’s appointment to the UNHRC’s Consultative Group. “There is no justification whatsoever in empowering a Chinese government official, Jiang Duan, to investigate human rights abuses until there is a reckoning with regard to China’s own record,” Smith said.
Pro-Tibet advocacy group ICT has put out a statement on Monday criticizing the appointment, “China has demonstrated a hostile attitude toward the universality and interdependence of international human rights standards for Tibetans, Uyghurs and the Chinese people themselves… ICT believes China’s membership in the Consultative Group is a severe blow to the credibility of the international human rights system.”
One Response
The United Nations is indeed becoming a butt of joke!This organisation is supposed to be the ombudsman of the International community to foresee and check the human rights abuses of nations and territories against its own citizens. However, over the years, it degenerated into a tool for big power politics and a conduit for big powers to wage war against others and suppress the indignation of weak nations or people against the members States like communist China. The world knows the shocking human rights abuses in Tibet, East Turkistan and China itself where arbitrary imprisonment, torture and death are occurring on a daily basis. China is the GREATEST KILLER! It’s annual execution of its citizens surpasses the number of executions of the whole world put together! It kills its citizens on an INDUSTRIAL SCALE! It has mobile execution units patrolling every city for 24/7 There are concentration camps in East Turkistan and the repression has been the order of the day for years. In Tibet, Tibetan language advocates, environmental activists, Buddhist monks and nuns are the targets of the Chinese gestapo who beat them until they are lifeless and then thrown into jails for merely defending their lands from Chinese exploitation, to asking to respect and preserve the Tibetan language or simply carrying the photo of the Dalai Lama. The sheer brutality of the Chinese gestapos are such that most Tibetan prisoners die soon after they are released. Their limbs have been broken and torn apart by constant beating and torture. In terms of longevity, most do not even reach their fifties. This is how communist China treats the Tibetans in occupied Tibet. In China, there are some 70 human rights lawyers locked away for defending their clients. China is known and recognised as the worst human rights abuser in the world. But now we have this wolf as the one of the UN’s human rights defenders!!! What a cruel joke? The UN has been bought by the Chinese money and have now given the green light to the Chinese fox to defend the hens!!! Have you ever seen such a thing in life?