Free Tibet urges British minister to get tough on China abuses during Tibet trip
 

British Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis (1) MP will later this week make the first visit to Tibet by a member of the British government since Tibetans defiantly demonstrated their rejection of Chinese rule in protests that swept across the Tibetan Plateau in Spring 2008.

Mr Lewis’s visit to Tibet will represent a crucial stage of the Minister’s visit to China which begins on September 6: the human rights situation inside Tibet has continued to deteriorate drastically (2) since Spring 2008 with more than one thousand detained Tibetans still unaccounted for by the Chinese authorities(3).

Despite China’s increasingly hardline response to even the mildest forms of dissent by Tibetans over the past year, the British government has failed to adapt its policy to reflect the recent deterioration of the situation inside Tibet. Instead it has continued to follow a policy of so-called constructive engagement with China which has failed to deliver any discernible progress in the field of human rights. British policy appears to prioritise China’s emergence as a global political and economic force over addressing its professed human rights concerns. The consequent failure to prioritise human rights in Tibet and China is evidenced by the lack of any strong public statement by the British government on the deterioration of human rights in Tibet since March 2008 (4).

Britain’s weakening position on human rights and Tibet was put into sharp focus only months after some of the worst human rights abuses committed by the Chinese authorities in Tibet in decades. In October 2008, instead of making a strong public statement on the worsening situation inside Tibet, the British government offered a major concession to China by suddenly reversing its position of 94 years that China merely enjoyed a “special position” in Tibet. In a statement British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, declared that Britain now regarded Tibet as “a part of the People’s Republic of China”(5).The move was made without any form of parliamentary oversight and was strongly condemned by Free Tibet at the time for surrendering an important point of leverage over the Chinese government. The British government has also failed to clarify whether any assurances on human rights and Tibet were sought from, or have been subsequently given by, China in return for Britain’s concession on the status of Tibet.

Free Tibet therefore hopes that Ivan Lewis will use the opportunity of his visit to break the British government’s silence on human rights in Tibet and publicly raise the concerns of the British governments with his Chinese counterparts. One of the most pressing concerns is China’s persistent refusal to account for more than one thousand Tibetans detained in the Spring of 2008. Free Tibet has also encouraged the Minister to specifically raise with his Chinese counterparts:

• concerns regarding the widespread and routine use of torture(6) by the Chinese authorities as a weapon designed to instil a climate of fear and self-censorship in Tibet;

• concerns regarding the widespread failure by the Chinese authorities to allow Tibetan detainees the fundamental rights and legal safeguards guaranteed under Chinese law.

Director of Free Tibet, Stephanie Brigden, said:

Ivan Lewis has to make a clear and public statement while in Tibet that China’s appalling and ongoing human rights abuses inside Tibet are unacceptable and must stop. It is inconceivable that a British minister visiting Tibet for the first time since last year’s protest and violent crackdown would fail to make such a statement. Failure to make a public statement would be seen as offering a tacit endorsement of China’s policy in Tibet, would hand China a wholly undeserved propaganda victory and would only embolden the Chinese authorities to carry on perpetrating further atrocities.”

Ends

For further information:

Matt Whitticase, External Communications

t +44 (0)20 7324 4605 / +44 (0)7515 788456 and email: matt@freetibet.org

Stephanie Brigden, Director

t +44 (0)20 7324 4605 / +44 (0)7530 528264 and email: stephanie@freetibet.org

Notes to Editor:

(1) Further biographical details on Ivan Lewis are available via the website of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at: http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/how-we-are-organised/ministers/i-lewis

(2) In January 2009 China launched a “strike-hard” campaign in Lhasa. Approximately 6000 Tibetans were rounded up for questioning, and approximately 80 arrested according to official Chinese state media. China has also moved thousands of additional troops into Tibet in recent months, imposing an overt and intimidating military presence on the streets of Tibet.

(3) The Chinese Government has failed to provide accurate figures of the number of Tibetans arrested since 10 March 2008, when protests against Chinese rule began in Lhasa and spread across the Tibetan plateau. This month, the UN took China to task about the ill-treatment of Tibetans. In response Chinese officials accounted for Tibetans arrested in Lhasa, but failed to account for more than 1,200 Tibetans detained during the 2008 Spring protests from the other Tibetan areas. Free Tibet’s press release “More than 1,000 Tibetans remain disappeared” can be read at: http://www.freetibet.org/newsmedia/300809

(4) on March 19 2008 Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons that he had stressed to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao “that there had to be an end to violence in Tibet” while talking to the Chinese premier on the telephone earlier that day.

(5 The Foreign Secretary argued that this change in stance would strengthen Britain's ability to advocate for the fundamental rights of the Tibetan people; days later the Sino-Tibetan talks collapsed and the Chinese government announced that it would "never" accept calls for Tibetan autonomy. Free Tibet's call for a formal review into the effectiveness of Britain's China-Tibet policy can be read at: http://www.freetibet.org/campaigns/mass-lobby-follow-action

(6) The UN Committee Against Torture (UN CAT) stated in November 2008 that torture was both widespread and routine in China and Tibet. The CAT’s conclusions are available at: The UN Committee on Torture’s conclusions are available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/docs/CAT.C.CHN.CO.4.pdf