Dubbed “China Targets”, the fresh investigation involving 42 media organisations delves into the various tactics Beijing uses to silence critics beyond its borders.
In particular, it focuses on the growing presence at the council of pro-China, government-organised non-governmental organisations, referred to as “Gongos”.
A bombshell report published by former UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet in 2022 for instance cited possible “crimes against humanity” against China’s Uyghur minority in the western Xinjiang region.
But when legitimate NGOs raise such issues at the council, Gongos often strive to disrupt the session and drown out their testimonies, the ICIJ said.
An ICIJ analysis of 106 NGOs from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan registered with the UN found that 59 had close links to the government in Beijing or the Chinese Communist Party.
“It’s corrosive. It’s dishonest,“ Michele Taylor, who served as US ambassador to the Human Rights Council from 2022 until January this year, was quoted as saying in the report.
Increasingly, the Beijing-controlled groups are also used to monitor and intimidate those planning to testify about alleged abuses, the investigation found.
Such incidents occurred both inside the UN and elsewhere in Geneva.
The report highlighted how a group of Chinese activists and dissidents were so fearful of Beijing’s swelling presence at the council that they in March last year refused to set foot inside the UN buildings.
But suddenly, four people claiming to work with the Guangdong Human rights Association showed up asking about the meeting, to which they had not been invited.
The four left, but later, when two Uyghur participants left the office for a smoke, they reported that someone in a black car with tinted windows photographed them before people matching the description of the Guangdong group got into the vehicle and it pulled away.
‘Deadly reprisal’
Over a decade ago, activist Cao Shunli was detained as she attempted to travel to Geneva ahead of a China rights record review at the UN.
ICIJ said her death “stood out as a powerful warning shot”, determining that the “deadly reprisal” had discouraged other activists from engaging with the UN.
At the same time, the number of Chinese NGOs registered with the UN has nearly doubled since 2018, it said.
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