‘China’s growing influence within the U.N. poses a significant risk of reshaping the organization to suit its own interests.’
A Paris-based rights group is sounding the alarm about China’s growing influence within the United Nations, saying that it poses a threat to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and rights defenders that want to advance human rights.
Christine Mirre, director of
CAP Freedom of Conscience, characterized China’s influence at the U.N. as “disturbing” and said that work must be done to protect the organization from being “sinicized.”
“China’s growing influence within the U.N. poses a significant risk of reshaping the organization to suit its own interests, potentially undermining its core functions,” Ms. Mirre said during an event hosted by Belgium-based organization
Human Rights Without Frontiers at the
Press Club Brussels on Feb. 29.
NGOs
accredited by the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) can obtain ground passes allowing their representatives to enter U.N. premises and participate in official meetings and debates. To obtain ECOSOC accreditation, NGOs must first file an application for screening. The U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the Committee on NGOs, a subsidiary of ECOSOC, are responsible for reviewing the application.
CAP Freedom of Conscience was
accredited by ECOSOC in 2016. However, Ms. Mirre explained that getting ECOSOC status did not come easily, noting that different Chinese diplomats have held the position of the
under-secretary-general for the ECOSOC since 2007.
“Our application for ECOSOC status was blocked for more than four years by China, which put us on its ‘blacklist’ of NGOs because of the submission we signed on the persecution of Falun Gong,” she explained, referring to a written submission to the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2013.
“It was only thanks to the absence of the Chinese representative at the last review of our NGO that we were granted the status.”
China at UN
In 2013, China underwent a peer review process called the
universal periodic review, which all U.N. member states must go through every four to five years. Several NGOs, including CAP Freedom of Conscience and Human Rights Law Foundation,
co-signed the submission calling on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to cease “imprisoning, detaining, and sentencing” Falun Gong adherents and “immediately end its campaign pursuing the eradication” of the group.
Ms. Mirre added that her organization is now “under constant pressure from China” over fulfilling the obligation as an ECOSOC-accredited NGO to submit a report to the Committee on NGOs every four years to report its activities. She said there had been delays in verifying their reports, adding that her organization had to deal with “ridiculous and insignificant questions,” such as what her group has contributed to religious freedom at the United Nations.
China’s clout within the U.N. has also “led to restrictions on human rights groups’ participation,” she added, recalling her experience of being “violently interrupted” by China’s representative while making an oral statement to the UNHRC.
Ms. Mirre also recalled seeing in person how a Chinese representative
attempted to prevent Dolkum Isa, president of Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, from speaking at the UNHRC on March 23 last year.
“We have also observed in recent years that China uses an unfair trick to mobilize the speaking time allocated to NGOs during the Human Rights Council [sessions]. Pro-China NGOs register in large numbers to glorify the Chinese model, thereby preventing any critical statements by human rights defenders,” Ms. Mirre added.
Despite China’s growing influence, Ms. Mirre argued that the U.N. body remains an important place for human rights advocacy due to its special reporting mechanisms.
“I think it’s important to do whatever we can to protect that institution from being ‘sinicized’ and to continue to expose China’s crimes at the U.N. despite the political pressure from Beijing,” she said.
“It is the responsibility of all human rights defenders, civil society, and [U.N.] member states to protect the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to keep the space of expression provided by the U.N. open to all victims deprived of their rights.”
Falun Gong
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on Dec. 10, 1948,
declares that human rights are universal. These rights include freedom of expression, belief, and peaceful assembly.
To recognize the 75th anniversary of the document last year, CAP Freedom of Conscience sent a
written statement to the United Nations last year, calling on U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to initiate a “fact-finding mission of forced organ harvesting in China via independent, international, unannounced inspections.”
The written statement referenced the China Tribunal, an independent people’s tribunal based in London, which
concluded in 2019 that forced organ harvesting had taken place in China for years “on a significant scale,” with Falun Gong adherents being the “principal source” of human organs.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that encourages its adherents to live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. According to official estimates, 70 million to 100 million people in China had taken up the practice by 1999.
China’s communist regime deemed the practice’s popularity as a threat to its rule and launched a brutal campaign against the group in July 1999. Since then, the CCP has forcibly sent hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners to detention centers, prisons, psychiatric wards, and other facilities, subjecting them to forced labor, torture, brainwashing, and other inhuman treatment.
Over 5,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted to death, as
documented by the Falun Dafa Information Center. However, according to the center, the actual number of deaths is believed to be many times higher.
In December last year, CAP Freedom of Conscience and several other NGOs
sent a letter to the top Democrat and Republican of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho)—asking them to bring the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act (
S.761) for committee consideration as soon as possible.
The House version of the legislation (
H.R. 1154)
passed by a vote of 413–2 in March last year. If enacted, it would sanction anyone involved in forced organ harvesting and require annual government reporting on such activities taking place in foreign countries.
