According to an exclusive report from The Epoch Times, leaked emails proved that UN human-rights officials give the names of Chinese dissidents to Beijing before these dissidents are set to testify in Geneva against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) abuses. Despite UN denials, the practice is viewed as “usual practice by all involved” and continues to this day. Beijing has used the names that the UN provided to prevent the dissidents from leaving China. At least one dissident died while in detention. These dissidents include those who are concerned about Tibet, Hong Kong, and the Islamic Uyghur minority in Western China. If the dissident has already left China, Beijing will frequently threaten or even kidnap and torture the person’s family.
One email from Sept 7, 2012, revealed that a diplomat from the CCP’s Mission to the UN in Geneva emailed a UN official to confirm if two names in the email were accredited and planned to attend the UN Human Right Council session. The first name was Dolkun Isa, the president of the World Uyghur Congress, which advocates on behalf of the Uyghur population of Western China’s Xinjiang region that is being brutally targeted by the CCP. One year after UN’s confirmation email, at the request of the CCP delegation, UN security attempted to remove Isa from the Human Rights Council chamber. On a separate occasion, CCP agents have shown up at Isa’s house overseas to try to get him to stop speaking out. The second person was Geng He, the wife of imprisoned Chinese human-rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, a Christian and author of a book about the severe torture the CCP subjected him to for his work defending people and for his beliefs. Gao suffered brutal torture because Beijing found out that his wife was planning to speak at the UN.
In a separate email, UN human-rights officials provided the names of four activists who were expected to attend the Human Rights Council.
In February 2020, The Epoch Times first reported the scandal and disclosed that it was UN whistleblower Emma Reilly who came forward and exposed the scandal but Reilly then faced retaliation. She is currently still employed by the UN but is under “investigation.”
According to Reilly, there is a systemic issue with the UN. It lacks supervision and external oversight. She is also deeply concerned about the close relationship between CCP agents and senior officials of the UN human rights council.
From 2013 to 2017, senior UN officials have been denying that the name sharing scandal ever happened. In January of 2021, a spokesperson for the UN was quoted as saying that the practice has stopped “since 2015.” However, in Feb 2, 2017, a press release from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) admitted that it was confirming identities of individuals being accredited to attend its human-rights event but not until “the accreditation process was formally under way, and until it was sure that there was no obvious security risk.”
Reilly disagrees. Transcripts from Reilly’s investigation case showed that Reilly challenged the UN and asked that it show evidence of the “security” check before handing over the names. None was provided.
According to Reilly, Beijing diplomats’ approach is a major violation of the UN’s own rules. If governments want to know who is attending UN human rights council, they are supposed to ask the plenary in front of other UN member states.
Reilly told The Epoch Times that the name sharing with the CCP continues to this day despite the escalating scandal surrounding the practice and the UN’s retaliation against her.
Documents obtained by Epoch Times revealed that some of the highest-ranking officials within the UN system have been involved in an effort to silence, discredit, and retaliate against Reilly because of her efforts.
Source: The Epoch Times, February 25, 2021
https://www.theepochtimes.com/emails-confirm-un-gave-names-of-dissidents-to-ccp_3711143.html