Conservative Party Human Rights Commission report |
Government's own body urges a stronger stand on human rights in China
7 June 2011
The Conservative Party Human Rights Commission today urges the government to take a more robust and public stand on human rights in China and Tibet in its report on international religious freedom, ‘The Freedom to Believe’ (2).
Reflecting wider condemnation of the government’s tendency to bang the drum for human rights at home but tiptoe around this thorny issue when in China, the report recommends
“...that concerns about human rights ... in China and Tibet are expressed in public statements, speeches and press conferences during visits to China and not just for a UK domestic audience.”(3)
The Commission recommends a more consistent approach to the UK-China Human Rights Dialogue and the introduction of benchmarks and timeframes to monitor progress; the dialogue, in its 14th year, is failing to achieve progress on the ground in Tibet and China (4).
The report also calls on the government to “end the vilification of the Dalai Lama” (5). China regularly accuses the Dalai Lama of promoting violence and labels him a separatist in futile efforts to break the loyalty of the Tibetan people and to tarnish the Dalai Lama’s international reputation as an emblem of peaceful dialogue.
The report includes a specific reference to ending the pernicious Chinese policy in Tibet of “patriotic re-education”, a compulsory programme imposed in unruly areas which aims to “correct [Tibetans’] thinking” (6).
Ends
Notes to editor
(1) Free Tibet gave both oral and written evidence to the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission for the report ‘The Freedom to Believe’; Free Tibet recommendations were widely adopted by the report http://www.freetibet.org/files/CPHRCevidence2010.pdf
(2) Recommendations n) and q), ‘The Freedom to Believe: Protecting and Promoting Article 18’, The Conservative Party Human Rights Commission report on international religious freedom.
The report will be launched by the new Chair of the Commission, Robert Buckland MP, in Room R, Portcullis House, 18:30, 7 June 2011
(3) Recommendation q), Ibid.
(4) http://www.freetibet.org/newsmedia/uk-should-suspend-failed-human-rights-dialogue-china
(5) Recommendation v), ‘The Freedom to Believe’
(6) Recommendation t), ‘The Freedom to Believe’
The main aim of patriotic re-education is to instil in people that they must love the Chinese “Motherland” and place it before their religion. Failure to comply with patriotic re-education campaigns has resulted in fines, surveillance, physical punishment such as beatings; monks and nuns are expelled from monasteries and nunneries; people are sometimes detained and even imprisoned for non-compliance.
Chinese state media reported that in 2009 alone more than 2,300 officials were sent to 505 monasteries and nunneries in the Tibetan Autonomous Region to carry out patriotic re-education.
(7) Free Tibet is an international campaigning organisation that stands for the right of Tibetans to determine their own future. We campaign for an end to the Chinese occupation of Tibet and for the fundamental human rights of Tibetans to be respected.
For further interviews and further information please contact Free Tibet’s Director Stephanie Brigden
T: +44 (0)207 324 4605