China says the U.N. counterterrorism chief is visiting this week at its invitation.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Friday confirmed the visit by Undersecretary General Vladimir Ivanovich Voronkov but didn’t comment on reports he is going to the restive Xinjiang region in China’s far west.
Human Rights Watch criticized the United Nations for sending a counterterrorism instead of a human rights official, saying it would help deflect attention from human rights abuses.
Pompeo Calls on China to Stop 'Abhorrent' Practice of Interning Uighur Muslims
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is describing as "tragic" and "abhorrent" China's mass detention of Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups in internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang.
“We've been very vocal about that publicly, and had long conversations with them privately, as well," Pompeo said in response to a question Tuesday from VOA. “The numbers are in the, certainly, hundreds of thousands.
China has faced growing international criticism over internment camps in Xinjiang that hold an estimated 1 million members of the Uighur and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups.
Chinese officials have described the camps as vocational training centers and say they are necessary to curb religious extremism.