UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet announced on 8 March that she has secured a visit to China ‘foreseen to take place in May’. Her announcement in an update to the UN Human Rights Council comes three and a half years after she publicly requested unrestricted access to China for the first time. Over this period, the undersigned organisations consider that she did not take adequate public diplomacy steps, including official statements, to respond to allegations of serious rights violations in the country in a timely manner.
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will open amid atrocity crimes and other grave human rights violations by the Chinese government, 243 nongovernmental organizations from around the world said today. The groups urged governments to join a diplomatic boycott of the Games, slated to begin February 4, 2022, and for athletes and sponsors not to legitimize government abuses.