UN rights chief hints report on Xinjiang may miss deadline

The outgoing U.N. human rights chief suggested Thursday that her office may not make good on her promise to release its long-awaited report on China’s Xinjiang region by the end of her term next week.
Speaking to reporters, Michelle Bachelet said her office is “trying” to meet the deadline that she herself set in June, shortly after announcing that she would not seek a new four-year term after the current one ends on Aug. 31.
“Try harder!” tweeted John Fisher, the Geneva director for Human Rights Watch, after hearing her news conference. “Anything less would be a disgrace to her office and a betrayal of victims.”
The final months of Bachelet’s term have been overshadowed by extended delays in releasing the report about Xinjiang, which many Geneva diplomats believed to be nearly completed a year ago.
“We are working on the report,” she said. “I had fully intended for it to be released before the end of my mandate, and we are trying.”
Bachelet said her office — as is common practice when the U.N. rights office reports on countries — has informed China about its “findings” and officials have come back with a “substantial” number of comments. She said her office was focusing only on possible factual errors now.