British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will also mark Britain’s return to the UN Human Rights Council as a voting member by condemning the rights of co-administrators China and Russia and will raise concerns about Myanmar and Belarus, his desk said. .
On China, Raab will refer to reports of abuses in Xinjiang, including torture, forced labor and forced sterilization of women. “They take place on an industrial scale,” he will say, according to his agency.
“The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, or some other independent research expert, needs – and I repeat must – be given urgent and unrestricted access to Xinjiang,” he will say.
China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in Xinjiang that Beijing describes as “vocational training centers” to eradicate extremism and give people new skills. China’s critics have called them concentration camps.
The United Nations has said that at least 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang.
While the Chinese government has repeatedly said that Muslim minorities in Xinjiang enjoy a high quality of life, attempts by journalists to report independently on the region have often been paralyzed by the authorities.
The Chinese government is under increasing pressure to address allegations of human rights violations against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.
British Foreign Secretary Raab will also address the “shameful” treatment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, the crisis in Myanmar and the situation in Belarus. He will outline steps Britain has taken to address these issues, such as sanctions, and encourage others to follow.