During his address, Mr. Ngawang Choephel questioned the ability of UN human rights mechanisms in monitoring the acceleratingly deteriorating human rights situation in the People's Republic of China, particularly in regions inhabited by ethnic and religious minorities; the Uyghurs in East Turkestan ('Xinjiang'), Inner Mongolians and Tibetans.

One of the most alarming aspects with regards to the limitations of human rights monitoring mechanisms is the fact that in the past 20 years, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights has not been able to visit Inner Mongolia and East Turkestan, and has not visted Tibet since 1998, nearly 16 years ago. Mr. Choephel also underlined that even during the Tibetan uprisings in 2008, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time, Ms. Arbour, was prevented from visiting the autonomous region. 

Despite many promises on the part of the Chinese Government to allow outside monitoring, the UN High Commissioner has yet to visit these resource-rich and strategic regions populated by ethnic minorities, which have witnessed increasingly frequent inter-ethnic disputes and heavy-handed rule by the Chinese authorities.

In his statement, Mr. Choephel urged China to respond positively to outstanding requests by the UN special procedures of the Human Rights Council to conduct missions. He finished his intervention by quoting the former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay, who stated that deep underlying issues need to be addressed and to seriously consider the recommendations by various international human rights bodies.

You can find the full statement here.