"DHARMAHSALA, August 24: The United Nation’s human rights representative yesterday criticized the Chinese government for the ‘drastically’ shrinking space for human rights in the most populous country in the world and for interfering with his work during a China visit. Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, at the press conference in Beijing after his 9-day official visit to China, complained of drastically shrinking space for civil society actions to discuss government policies. “None of those meetings were arranged, and the message I got from many of the people I contacted was that they had been advised that they should be on vacation at this time,” said the Professor at NYU School of Law. He also shared that he was followed everywhere by Chinese officials and an activist who was trying to get a meeting with him was detained near the UN office in Beijing. “The Chinese government and me did not reach a common understanding of the role of a UN rapporteur,” said the Australian Professor after being able to meet only those accepted by the government. Freedom House, in their 2016 report, had placed Tibet as the second worst place in the world for political rights and civil liberties. According to the report of Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), human rights and rule of law have suffered a devastating blow since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013. Philip labeled ‘pincer movement’ of the Chinese Communist Party as an ‘unfortunate trend’ to restrict the ability of the civil society organizations, lawyers, activist and NGOs to protest. The professor saw his trip to a model ethnic village near Kunming in Yunnan Province as China’s tactic to show communal harmony and dismiss any idea of ill treatments to ethnic minorities. He, however, said that China has made a good progress towards its goal of eliminating poverty by 2020." https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=772940009515834&id=543145492495288