Free Tibet Campaign welcomes Gordon Brown's comments on human rights in Tibet: calls for Prime Minister to go further in Beijing

Free Tibet Campaign welcomes the comments made by British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, that “the human rights of all those in Tibet should be fully respected”(1) but believes the Prime Minister must go on public record with far more detail about the human rights concerns he will raise with Chinese leaders in Beijing.  

However, Free Tibet Campaign challenges the Prime Minister’s claim that “support for the Games and engagement with China is not at the expense of human rights”.

Stephanie Brigden, director of Free Tibet Campaign, said: “We have seen the deterioration of human rights in Tibet directly as a result of China  staging the Games. Huge areas of Tibet deemed likely to protest during the Olympics, such as Kandze and Ngaba, are currently under military lockdown with checkpoints and curfews making movement in and out of the towns practically impossible.”

Over the past 11 years the British government has pursued a policy of “constructive engagement” with China, in which human rights concerns have rarely been raised publicly. Bilateral discussion of human rights and China’s ongoing abuses in Tibet have instead been addressed in a closed UK-China Human Rights dialogue which has taken place twice a year. The dialogue lacks transparency and has no benchmarks against which any progress made by China in the field of human rights can be measured.

“Constructive engagement” has failed to bring any positive result in the field of human rights in Tibet where the situation has appreciably worsened this year alone. Examples of recent and ongoing abuses include:  the shooting and killing of peaceful Tibetan protesters by Chinese security forces in Ngaba town on 16 March 2008 and in Tongkor town on 3 April 2008; a planned purge of recalcitrant monasteries and monks in the Kandze region. On 2 June 2008, Tibet’s Head of Propaganda, Lie Que, was quoted in the official Tibet Daily newspaper as saying “we must clean out the monasteries”;

Free Tibet Campaign is calling on the Prime Minister to:

·       Publicly address the human rights violations in Tibet and China before and during his visit to Beijing.

·       Call for an independent investigation into events in Tibet since 10 March 2008.

·       Impress upon the Chinese government that it cannot gain respect on the world stage unless it transparently enters into high-level, results-orientated dialogue with the Tibetan government-in-exile on the future of Tibet.

Ends

For more information, contact Matt Whitticase, Free Tibet Campaign, in Bangkok on +66 844 549 764 or Anne Holmes in London on +44 (0)20 7324 4605 or +44(0)7798 666658.

(1) The full Reuters article which quotes Gordon Brown on China and human rights follows:

UK's Brown to raise human rights with China

Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:38pm EDT

ON BOARD FLIGHT TO BEIJING (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged China on Wednesday to make more progress on human rights, saying the issue needed to be addressed not only during the Olympic Games.

Brown, who will attend the Olympics closing ceremony, said he would raise the matter with China's leaders when he meets them in Beijing.

"I want to say that human rights matters to us every year, not just in the Olympic year," Brown told reporters on his plane on the way to Beijing.

London will host the 2012 Olympic Games.

In a public letter to opposition Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who questioned Brown's attendance at the Olympics on human rights grounds, Brown said supporting China's "re-engagement" in the world was in Britain's national interest.

"Support for the Games and engagement with China is not at the expense of human rights. It is integral to their promotion. China has made enormous social and economic progress over the last three decades, but much more remains to be done," he wrote.

"I firmly believe that allowing China's citizens to enjoy freedom of expression and association; to worship how and where they wish; and to live in confidence that the rule of law will be applied consistently and impartially is not only the right thing to do but will also benefit China's future stability and prosperity, which is in all our interests," he wrote.

Brown also gave an interview to Xinhua News Agency in which he urged China to continue with press and other freedoms after the Olympics, including in terms of its relationship with Tibet.

"The human rights of all those in Tibet should be fully respected," he said. "Our consistent position is that the way to resolve the issues highlighted by the disturbances in March is through dialogue, not violence."