UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet welcome to visit Xinjiang, Chinese ambassador says
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China’s envoy in Geneva said on Thursday that he hoped UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet would visit China, including Xinjiang, where he said “education training centres” were helping to stamp out extremism and give people new skills.
China has been condemned internationally for setting up complexes in the remote western region of Xinjiang that UN experts describe as mass detention centres holding more than 1 million ethnic Uygurs and other Muslims.
“We hope to see the high commissioner pay a visit to China, including a trip to Xinjiang to see for herself … Seeing is believing,” Chen Xu, China’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told a news conference hosted by the UN correspondents’ association, ACANU.
“The invitation to the high commissioner is always there, we hope to define a time which is convenient to both sides,” he said.
“What is happening in Xinjiang is education training centres help young people, especially young people, to get skills, to be well-equipped for their reintegration into society,” Chen said, adding that “there are no so-called re-education camps”.