The top United Nations human rights official says she hopes to agree terms for a visit this year to China, including its Xinjiang region, to look into reports of serious violations against Muslim Uighurs.
It was the first time that Michelle Bachelet had publicly suggested a timeline for the visit, for which her office has been negotiating the terms since September 2018.
China's UN mission in Geneva, contacted by Reuters for comment, said Xinjiang and Hong Kong were "inalienable parts of China's territory" and that it brooked "no interference by external forces" but made no comment on her visit.
Ms Bachelet is under growing pressure from some countries to secure unfettered access to Xinjiang, where activists say more than a million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims have been held in camps, some of them mistreated or subject to forced labour.
Officials in Beijing deny the accusations and describe the camps as vocational training facilities to combat religious extremism.
"I continue to discuss with China modalities for a visit, including meaningful access, to the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, and hope this can be achieved this year, particularly as reports of serious human rights violations continue to emerge," Ms Bachelet told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Protesters gather and hold a Uighur flag and placards outside the Chinese Embassy in London. Source: Getty Images
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports this year documenting practises that they said could meet criteria for crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.
Ms Bachelet told the council that the national security law imposed in Hong Kong a year ago had had a "chilling impact" on democratic space and media in the former British colony.
She said 107 people had been arrested under the law, including 57 formally charged, and that the first trials were due this week.
"This will be an important test of independence for Hong Kong's judiciary in its willingness to uphold Hong Kong's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in accordance with the Basic Law," she said.
Government officials in Beijing and Hong Kong say the law is needed to avert threats to national security and that the rights and freedoms of ordinary Hong Kong people are being protected.
"The High Commissioner is advised to stop making erroneous remarks against China, and refrain from interfering in China's sovereignty and judicial independence," Liu Yuyin, spokesman at China's mission in Geneva, said by email.
Critics say the law is being used to crush dissent in the global financial hub, an assertion officials in Beijing reject.
