Michelle Bachelet's four years as the UN's human rights chief have been marked by her handling of alleged abuses in Xinjiang and China's treatment of the region's Uyghur minority.

Less than a week before she is due to step down, the former Chilean president acknowledged Thursday that she had been under "tremendous pressure" over a long-delayed report on the rights situation in China's far-western province, and that it remained unclear when it would be published.

- The allegations -

The US government and lawmakers in a number of other Western countries have labelled China's treatment of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang "genocide" -- a charge Beijing vehemently denies.

Rights groups say at least one million people, mostly members of Muslim minorities, have been incarcerated in "re-education camps" in the region, and face widespread abuses, including forced sterilisation of women and coerced labour.

China says it is running vocational training centres in the region designed to counter extremism.

- Build-up to visit, report -

At a UN committee in August 2018, China was accused of turning Xinjiang into a giant internment camp.

Bachelet took office as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights at the start of September that year, but did not mention those claims during her first speech on September 18.

The text of her address, sent to the media, did refer to the allegations, but she left the section out when delivering the speech.

In March 2019, she called for "full access to carry out an independent assessment of the continuing reports pointing to wide patterns of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions".

Pressed by Western countries and non-governmental organisations to take a tougher line with Beijing, in February 2021 she called for a "comprehensive assessment of the human rights situation" in Xinjiang.

Seven months later, she announced that, pending significant access to Xinjiang, her office was "finalising its assessment of the available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in that region, with a view to making it public".

At the end of 2021, her office insisted that the report would be released in the coming weeks. But its publication was repeatedly postponed.

- Six-day China trip -

For most of her term, Bachelet called for "meaningful and unfettered access" to Xinjiang. But an agreement that met that demand seemed elusive.

In June 2019, Chen Xu, China's ambassador in Geneva, issued an open invitation to visit, saying: "Seeing is believing".

But Beijing had always stressed that it should not be a fact-finding mission but a "friendly visit".

Bachelet's office and China eventually found enough common ground to organise the visit this year.

The six-day trip took place in May, marking the first visit to China by a UN rights chief in 17 years.

At its conclusion, Bachelet insisted that her visit was "not an investigation", and said she had spoken with "candour" to the country's leaders about their actions in Xinjiang.

Bachelet urged China to avoid "arbitrary and indiscriminate measures" in its crackdown in Xinjiang -- but also said she recognised the damage caused by "violent acts of extremism".

Organisations defending the Uyghurs slammed her remarks as too lenient.

She also faced criticism from the United States and major NGOs over her perceived lack of firmness with Beijing and for acting more like a diplomat than a global human rights champion.

- The report -

Bachelet's office has said little about the report and its contents.

"The assessment has been prepared under the high commissioner's global mandate for the promotion and protection of human rights," a spokesman for her office told AFP in early August.

"Following allegations of human rights violations against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities brought to the attention of this office since late 2017, and the competing narratives around the situation on the ground, the high commissioner informed the Human Rights Council in 2021 that an independent assessment was necessary."

In late July, China's mission in Geneva published an "open letter from nearly 1,000 NGOs opposing the release of the so-called assessment on Xinjiang", calling on Bachelet's office "to stand on the right side of history and not to release an assessment full of lies".

Bachelet told reporters Thursday that her office was "trying very hard to do what I promised" and publish the report before she steps down next week.

She also acknowledged that she had faced "tremendous pressure to publish or not to publish" the report.

"But I will not publish or withhold publication due to any such pressure."

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Not clear when Xinjiang report will be published: UN rights chief
Geneva (AFP) Aug 25, 2022
The UN human rights chief said Thursday that it remained unclear whether a long-delayed report on China's Xinjiang region will be published before she steps down next week. "I had fully intended for it to be released before the end of my mandate, and we ... have received substantial input from the government that we will need to carefully review," Michelle Bachelet told reporters. Bachelet said nearly a year ago that her office was finalising a report on the rights situation in the Xinjiang regi ... read more