The reasons some countries, even those that are predominately Muslim, abstained or voted against the resolution are complicated, analysts said. Phil Lynch, director at the International Service for Human Rights, tweeted a chart of the vote. “he extremely close vote highlights the growing number of states willing to buck the pressure from China to remain silent, take a stand on principle and shine a spotlight on China’s sweeping rights violations,” said Human Rights Watch China Director Sophie Richardson.

“Today’s vote protects the perpetrators of human rights violations rather than the victims - a dismaying result that puts the U.N.’s main human rights body in the farcical position of ignoring the findings of the U.N.’s own human rights office,” Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said. International rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also released immediate statements shortly after the resolution failed, calling the result a betrayal. “The Chinese government’s singular goal has been to silence even a discussion of the issue - we cannot allow this to happen.” “The road to justice is never an easy one,” Omer Kanat, executive director of the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, said in the statement. In the statement, Uyghur groups said that by voting against the motion, member “states have blatantly disregarded previously accepted principles of objectivity, dialogue, impartiality, non-discrimination, and non-selectivity” within the Human Rights Council. and its human rights experts to “take concrete action according to their mandates” on the human rights situation in Xinjiang. More than 60 Uyghur rights groups around the world released a joint statement, urging the U.N. Many of the countries that voted against the resolution were Muslim-majority countries. “The international community cannot fail the victims of the Uyghur genocide.” “We are really disappointed by the reaction of Muslim countries, we have witnessed once again how strong the ties of our so-called Muslim brothers and sisters are with China,” Isa told VOA in an email. Uyghur rights organizations voiced a very different response to the vote.ĭolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, called the final vote “a missed opportunity by council members” to hold China to the same standard as other countries. Zhang Meifang, consul general of China in Belfast, posted a screen shot of the result of the vote. They are about countering violent terrorism, radicalization and separatism,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said. “The issues related to Xinjiang are not about human rights.

human rights bodies as a tool to interfere in China’s internal affairs and to serve the agenda of using Xinjiang to contain” China. and some Western parliaments have designated China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang as genocide and crimes against humanity.īeijing said the countries that supported the draft resolution “propagated falsehoods” on the human rights situation in Xinjiang and used “U.N. report concluded in August that China’s human rights violations against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in Xinjiang “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.” The U.S. Xinjiang human rights report at the next regular session of the council in March.

26, asking to discuss the findings of a U.N. and co-sponsored by Britain, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway, was presented to the U.N. The draft resolution was rejected with 19 against, 17 in favor and 11 abstaining.

Human Rights Council voted on the motion to debate China’s treatment of Muslim communities in the Xinjiang region. and the West of “misinforming the public,” comments that came a day after the 47 member states of the U.N. In a statement Friday by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a spokesperson accused the U.S. Uyghur rights groups voiced strong disappointment. WASHINGTON: Beijing highlighted the failure of a push by the United States and some Western countries to debate China’s human rights record in Xinjiang at next year’s U.N.

Voter records