FIDH is disappointed by the fact that, once again, China’s government has used the UPR to rebuff international concern over serious human rights violations, issue blanket denials, and make blatantly false statements.
The government accepted – wholly or partially – 70% of the UPR recommendations China received in January 2024. This represents a 12% drop in the proportion of recommendations the government accepted compared to the previous UPR in 2018.
In a worrying sign of the government’s outright refusal to heed the mounting international concern over key human rights issues, of the 130 recommendations it did not accept, an unprecedented number – 98 – were categorized as “rejected.”
The government accepted only one third of the recommendations it received on human right issues in Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang – in many cases claiming they were based on “false information,” despite many verified reports, including by UN experts. For example, the government had the audacity to call “illegal” the 2022 OHCHR assessment on Xinjiang.
Despite well-documented evidence to the contrary, the government claimed that many of the recommendations it accepted were being implemented or had already been implemented. Such was the case regarding the accepted recommendations related to human rights in Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang, and the situation of human rights defenders, lawyers, civil society, media, and journalists. The government also made the false claim that it protected “freedom of speech, association and assembly” and “the lawful rights of all citizens as equals.”
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