Dolkun Isa, a Uyghur activist based in Germany and president of the World Uyghur Congress, spoke up during a general debate about concerns around the world.
Pointing to a number of recent reports, including one from former UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet, warning of possible crimes against humanity being committed against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China's far-western Xinjiang region, he said the allegations "require the immediate and urgent attention of the council".
But as soon as he began speaking, China's representative in the room Mao Yizong demanded the floor to object.
"We have reason to challenge the qualification of the speaker," he said, insisting that Isa was "not the representative of an NGO, and still less a human rights defender.
"Rather he is an anti-China, separatist, violence element," Mao said, speaking in Chinese through an interpreter, warning that "allowing him to engage in separatist activities in the council would be in serious violation of the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, as well as the rules of procedure of the Human Rights Council".
After Mao's objection, US representative Sam Birnbaum took the floor to insist on Isa's right to address the council, the top UN rights body.
And council president Vaclav Balek of the Czech Republic pointed out that NGOs are free to pick the speakers that represent them during the debate, and ruled he was entitled to finish his intervention.
Isa had been invited by the non-governmental organisation Global Human Rights Defence to take its brief speaking slot during the NGO portion of the debate, which comes after the council's 47 member states and numerous observer countries have voiced their positions.
- 'Disinformation' -
"It's not the first time the Chinese government is trying to stop me," Isa told AFP later, saying "China is trying to manipulate the UN rights system."
As he completed his statement before the council, he lamented that it had failed last October to agree to even put the Xinjiang issue on the agenda, despite the damning findings in Bachelet's report.
That report, published minutes before Bachelet's term ended on August 31 last year, highlighted "credible" allegations of widespread torture, arbitrary detention and violations of religious and reproductive rights.
It brought UN endorsement to long-running allegations that Beijing detained more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslims in prison camps.
Isa told AFP his mother died in such a camp a few years ago, and that two of his brothers were serving lengthy sentences.
During China's intervention in the UN debate, representative Li Xiaomei alleged the United States and others "out of their own political agenda fabricate and spread disinformation" about the rights situation in China.
US ambassador Michele Taylor flatly rejected that statement, pointing to the numerous expert findings of "evidence of serious abuses, including possible crimes against humanity".
Biden expresses 'solidarity' with China's Uyghurs
Washington (AFP) March 22, 2023 - President Joe Biden expressed "solidarity" Thursday with China's embattled Uyghur minority in a message to Muslims around the world as they celebrate the holy month of Ramadan.
"Together with our partners, the United States stands in solidarity with Muslims who continue to face oppression, including Uyghurs in the People's Republic of China, Rohingya in Burma, and other Muslim communities facing persecution around the world," Biden said in a statement.
"During this sacred time of reflection, the United States also reaffirms our support to Muslim communities suffering hardships and devastation," Biden said, referring to earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria, and flood victims in Pakistan.
"Today especially, we remember the universal human right to practice, pray, and preach our faiths peacefully and openly."
Biden's highlighting of the Uyghurs -- who the US government says are being subjected to genocide by the Chinese communist authorities -- came at a time of strong tension between Washington and Beijing.
According to rights groups, Uyghurs are subjected to mass incarceration in forced labor camps and banned from expressing their culture. Beijing says the ethnic minority is not being repressed and that any security measures in their northwestern region of Xinjiang are a response to a terrorism threat.
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