At the United Nations, the United States routinely welcomes the opportunity to discuss concerns related to racism, stated Dan Murphy, U.S. Advisor for Economic and Social Affairs at the United Nations.
“The United States believes that transparency, openness, and a willingness to examine and admit one’s own shortcomings will lead to improvement and, as our Constitution says, ‘a more perfect union,’” he said.
“Civil society in the United States is allowed to operate freely and openly to draw attention to past misdeeds and ongoing challenges, even when such issues are uncomfortable,” noted Advisor Murphy. But this is not the case in many parts of the world, including in China.
Indeed, if “the people of Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong enjoy happiness and the protection of all human rights, then we would hope that the People’s Republic of China would transparently welcome special,” rapporteurs to visit China, said Advisor Murphy:
“But the People’s Republic of China does not extend these invitations. Nor does it permit civil society to speak freely or advocate positions it sees as adverse to state interests. Nor does it allow members of the press to report without fear of censorship or arrest. Instead, the People’s Republic of China uses its speaking time here [the UN] to distract the international community from documented evidence of crimes against humanity ... and to deny the human rights abuses it is committing with impunity against its own people.”
No nation, including China is above scrutiny, said Advisor Murphy.
“We call on the People’s Republic of China to embrace honest self-reflection rather than continual and unconvincing denials of its own human rights problems, to cease threatening Member States that raise concerns about China’s human rights practices, and to address concerns and recommendations continually raised by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, multiple special procedures mandate holders, and the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, just to name a few,” he said.
“Let us all equally and sincerely seek,” said Advisor Murphy, “in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ‘the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and from want … as the highest aspiration of the common people.’”
