Zhao Lijian Photo: VCG

China on Thursday called on the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to respect Chinese people's concerns and refuse to release a fake report concerning China's Xinjiang region, echoing an open letter from about 1,000 domestic and foreign nongovernmental organizations. 

Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, made the remarks at a routine press conference, when asked for comment on the open letter made public on Tuesday, which urged the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to refuse to approve her office's release of a so-called assessment of the Xinjiang region, which the letter said is "full of lies."

Zhao said that the so-called assessment was totally a farce processed by the US and some other Western countries. 

Initially, some Western countries desperately urged the UN human rights chief to conduct a so-called investigation in Xinjiang. After Bachelet decided to come to China, they put forward a pile of conditions to "secure the visit to be unfettered." Then they demanded that Bachelet cancel the visit after she had departed. 

During Bachelet's visit, they continued to ask her to follow the routines they prepared for her, Zhao said.  

At last, Bachelet completed the visit and released an official statement, but they refused to recognize the statement and forced her office to release a so-called assessment that is full of fake information. These countries' political intentions are crystal clear, Zhao noted.

Zhao said the open letter represents the voice of justice by far-sighted personage from home and abroad and urged the office of the UN human rights chief to respect the serious concerns of the Chinese people, as well as all righteous people all over the world, stand on the right side of history and refuse to release an assessment based on fake information and ungrounded accusations.     

In May, Bachelet made a visit to China's Xinjiang region and said in a statement issued at the end of her visit that her team had wide interactions with people from different sectors in the region. 

Bachelet's statement clearly disappointed anti-China forces in the US and some Western countries, as they have been hyping "genocide" allegations and smearing the human rights situation in the Xinjiang region. After Bachelet's visit, they kept pressuring the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to release a "full report" on the situation in Xinjiang.  

In the abovementioned open letter dated July 15 and made public on Tuesday, the organizations expressed their serious concerns over the pressure that Bachelet had experienced from anti-China forces to approve the release of the assessment.

"Against the objective facts" and "completely untrue", the assessment is based on false accusations fabricated by those forces and false testimony given by overseas anti-China separatists, and it echoes lies about Xinjiang, the organizations said in the letter.

Xinjiang society is safe, stable and constantly developing, and local residents are living and working in peace and contentment, Zhao said at the Thursday press conference, noting that all lies about Xinjiang would collapse of themselves.

In response to the smear campaign against the Xinjiang region, many Xinjiang residents voluntarily sent emails to Bachelet to express their anger, share the true situation in the region and debunk lies made by anti-China forces in the US and other Western countries that smear the region, the Global Times learned from residents. 

For example, Zaynur Namatqari, a former trainee from a vocational education and training center in Shufu county of Kashi Prefecture, wrote in an email that female trainees' rights had been protected and no one had been assaulted. 

"The so-called reports on 'female trainees being sexually assaulted,' 'male trainees being tortured,' or training centers are 'concentration camps' are lies made by the BBC and other Western media!" said Zaynur.

Global Times