SWITZERLAND clarified today that it had not officially “summoned” China’s ambassador to Bern over a United Nations report listing serious abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, but had invited him to a meeting. 

The Swiss Foreign Ministry said there had been an “error in the choice of words”, confirming information provided to the ATS news agency. 

The ministry told AFP on Wednesday that it had “summoned China’s ambassador to Bern to convey to him Switzerland’s concerns following the publication of the… report on the situation in Xinjiang”.

But spokesman Pierre-Alain Eltschinger said today they had meant to say the ambassador had been “summoned to a meeting”, which was part of a regular series of talks with China about human rights.

The meeting took place yesterday. 

The landmark report – released minutes before UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet left office last week – detailed a string of rights violations including torture, forced labour and arbitrary detention.

It brought the UN seal to many of the allegations long made by activist groups, Western nations and the Uighur community in exile.

The report said China may have carried out “crimes against humanity” but stopped short of calling Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghurs “genocide”.

The term has been used by the United States since January 2021 and embraced by legislatures of other Western nations.

China has vehemently rejected such charges and slammed the report, accusing the UN of becoming a “thug and accomplice of the US and the West”.

Swiss ambassador to the UN in Geneva Jurg Lauber told reporters Wednesday that his country thought the report was “very good quality”.

“It is quite objective on the facts and also very clear in its findings,” he said, adding that Switzerland would like to see “China implement the recommendations in the report”. – AFP, September 9, 2022.