[London] Free Tibet Campaign and its supporters will use the visit to London today by senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official Mr Jia Qinglin (1), to demonstrate their outrage at China's recent extra-judicial murder of two defenceless Tibetan refugees on the Tibet-Nepal border (2). The fourth-ranking member of China's Politburo and former mayor of Beijing is to attend a lunch held in his honour by The China-Britain Business Council at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington.

"The recent murders of Tibetan refugees by Chinese border security follows a year of crackdowns on religious freedoms in Tibet, an escalating campaign by the Party to emasculate both the domestic and foreign media in China and revelations that the organs of live political prisoners have been harvested in China for commercial profit," said Yael Weisz-Rind of Free Tibet Campaign. She continued, "The British businessmen lunching with Mr Jia today can no longer pretend that trade will encourage China's leaders to reign in their brutal instincts in Tibet. The orders to fire on Tibetans at the Nepal border came from the Party's Central Military Commission. Mr Jia is a senior party figure and the man being dined today has blood on his hands. The silence of British Government and business on the subject of human rights in China and Tibet not only allows China to act with utter impunity in suppressing freedoms; it also shows that it is China that is changing the behaviour and values of business and not foreign investment that is inevitably leading the way to political change in China. Google's censoring of its search engine for users in China is merely the most obvious example of a more general trend."

With London due to stage the Olympics four years after the Beijing Games in 2008, British politicians and business interests have been quick to exploit the potential of the UK and China being co-custodians of the Olympic ideal in order to further political and commercial interests. But as China prepares to showcase the "new China", it is stamping down hard on dissent as a warning to those seeking to use the media spotlight in 2008 to protest against the government. Whilst proving adept at identifying the commercial opportunities that come from co-custodian status, Britain has failed totally in its obligation conferred by such status to persuade China to improve its rights record.

Contact: Office 020 7324 4605, Ya'el Weisz-Rind (07733 393 773), Matt Whitticase (07904 063 746)

Notes to Editor:

(1) Jia Qinglin is Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and is the fourth-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China.

(2) On 30 September 2006 western climbers at Advance Base Camp Chu Oyo witnessed Chinese border guards take aim and deliberately fire at a caravan of 70 defenceless Tibetan refugees fleeing over the Himalayas into Nepal to escape further Chinese persecution in Tibet. Two deaths have been confirmed as a result.

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