Experts slam Western hypocrisy on human rights issues

Experts have criticized some people in the West for wrongfully accusing China of human rights violations while keeping silent over the situation in Gaza.

Li Changlin, a professor at the Human Rights Institute of the Southwest University of Political Science & Law, censured the West for accusing China of committing genocide against some ethnic minorities, saying that the West was inaccurately portraying China's fight against terrorism.

Citing the white paper titled "China's Legal Framework and Measures for Counterterrorism," Li said China's counterterrorism efforts target only those who break the law or commit crimes in terrorist activities, not people from specific ethnic groups, regions or religions. "This means that we cannot and did not link terrorism with any particular region, ethnic group or religion."

In this regard, the West's accusation of China using counterterrorism measures to carry out "genocide" in certain regions, including Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, disregards facts, Li said, adding that this also runs against the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

Noting the increasingly worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Li slammed the West for its "double standard and hypocrisy" as it attacked China in the name of human rights while turning a blind eye to the millions of people in Gaza.

"They do not proceed from the Charter of the United Nations, the universally recognized norms of international law, or from the perspective of promoting global counter-terrorism or global human rights, but from their own interests," Li said.

Other experts voiced the same concern while delivering their remarks at a seminar on Monday, the first day of the new session of the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) working group, where China and other 13 states are being reviewed during the session from January 22 to February 2.

Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, former United Nations independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, said that for years, some people from the United States and other Western countries keep harping on the idea of "genocide" happening in Xinjiang but they never provide any real evidence.

De Zayas said he finds it "very annoying" when he hears the top U.S. diplomat talking about a "rule-based international order." "We already have it, it is the UN Charter, the only thing is that some countries are not observing it."

The former UN expert also criticized some Western countries' "unconventional war" of unilateral measures against counties like Syria, Cuba and Venezuela, which is prohibited by the UN Charter.

"I do not use the term sanctions because the term sanctions means that you have the moral or legal authority to punish somebody else, and certainly, the United States has no legal or moral authority to punish Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, etc."

Christoph Stuckelberger, president of the Geneva Agape Foundation, said at Monday's seminar that under this weaponization of ideological instrumentalization of human rights, if some people decide to accuse certain countries of human rights violations, they will become somehow blind to facts and figures.

"That means you can give them tonnes and tonnes of studies, (but) they just do not convince them," he said.

(With input from Xinhua)

(Cover: A view of the United Nations Human Rights Council during the review of China's rights record at the UN Offices at Geneva, Switzerland, January 23, 2024. /CFP)