US and Human Rights Organizations Criticize China at the United Nations

On the eve of the high-level leaders' meeting at the United Nations on women's equality, the United States and several human rights organizations explicitly criticized China's actions in suppressing and arresting women's rights activists. This criticism comes as the meeting is set to be chaired by Xi Jinping, the President of China. China hosted the last major UN conference on women in 1995 in Beijing, and President Xi has previously emphasized the importance of respecting women's rights. However, an Amnesty International official described Xi's statements as 'hypocritical' given the ongoing arrests of women's rights activists in the country. Lizel Gernholtz from Human Rights Watch commented that China's presence at the UN meeting should not only include officials involved in repression but also brave women who have fought for change. Samantha Power, the US representative to the UN, has displayed photos of twenty women's rights activists, including three from China, at the US mission's windows over the past three weeks, stressing that these women should be present at the UN meeting instead of being imprisoned. The first photo in this collection belongs to Wang Yu, a Chinese lawyer who established an organization to combat sexual harassment of girls in schools and defend women's rights activists in the country. She was arrested in July on suspicion of 'attempting to overthrow the government' and has since been held in an undisclosed location. However, China is not the only country criticized by the US in this context. The US mission to the UN also referenced women from Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Iran, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Venezuela, and Syria who have faced persecution for their women's rights activities. The list of twenty also includes Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot detained by Russian-backed separatists, and a woman from North Korea whose name has not been released but is reported to be held as a political prisoner in that country. Following the US mission's display of these photos, Vietnam was compelled to release Ms. Phuong Thanh, who had been imprisoned for three years for blogging in defense of women's rights and sentenced to ten years in prison. In Egypt, the country's president pardoned Ms. Sanaa Seif, who had been sentenced to three years in prison for unauthorized protests. Although the issue of suppressing women's rights activists is a significant topic at the UN meeting, it is not the only goal of the gathering. The UN Women organization, which co-chairs the meeting with China, has stated that leaders from over seventy countries are expected to be 'committed to taking practical and serious actions' to overcome challenges in achieving women's equality.