'Bachelet welcome to visit Xinjiang'

 By Xinhua News Agency
February 21, 2022

BEIJING: China welcomes UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to visit the country, including a visit to Xinjiang, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday.


WELCOME VISITOR This handout picture posted on the Twitter account of the UN Human Rights organization on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022, shows Dubai's Sheikha Latifa (left) posing for a picture with UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet in Paris recently. AFP PHOTO

Wang attended the 58th Munich Security Conference via video link and made the remarks in response to queries concerning China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Wang said China has long expressed its welcome to Bachelet and is discussing with Bachelet and her office on the schedule, and Bachelet will see a Xinjiang, where peace and stability are maintained and people of all ethnic groups live in harmony during her visit.

Noting that Xinjiang is adjacent to an area where terrorist and extremist forces are concentrated, Wang said the local government of Xinjiang, in order to maintain the safety of the people, carried out deradicalization work through education, in accordance with the practices of countries including Britain and France and international practices. Such work has fundamentally eliminated the soil of extremism and won the support of the people in Xinjiang, Wang said, adding that in the past five years, there have been no violent terrorist incidents in the region.

The so-called systematic "forced labor" or "re-education camps" are all lies and fabrication, Wang said. China welcomes foreigners to visit Xinjiang to learn the truth of the matter, Wang said, noting that before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Xinjiang had received more than 2,000 government officials, religious figures and journalists from more than 100 countries and international organizations. "But one thing is certain, people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang do not welcome any investigation based on the presumption of guilt and they firmly oppose all kinds of prejudice and groundless accusations against China's ethnic policies," Wang said.