-Filed by Office of Tibet, Brussels
European Parliament passed a resolution on 18 April 2019 on China, notably the situation of religious and ethnic minorities. The resolution was adopted by 505 votes in favor, 18 against, with 47 abstentions.
This is the last resolution of the Plenary of this Parliament. The next Parliament will be elected on May 26.
The resolution covered the whole gamut of Chinese suppression of human rights with special mention of Tibetans, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Christians in China. The resolution, while decrying these repressions, has called on the EU and the member states to actively raise these issues in multilateral as well as UN fora, including the Human Rights Council.
While recalling the suppressive grid system in Tibet, it also enumerated curtailing a wide range of human rights under the pretext of security and stability. It also called for the resolution of the Tibetan crisis while recalling the incidents of self-immolation. More importantly, out of 22 substantive recommendations, 8 were Tibet specific.
The resolution took into consideration not only the suppression of human rights in various territories under China but also made numerous cases to stop it outside China, including in the EU territory. Under these recommendations, number 13 called on the EU member states to prevent any activities undertaken by the Chinese authorities in the EU territory to harass members of communities like Turkic, Tibetan, and other ethnic groups.
While calling for reciprocity for access to Tibet, the current resolution went one step further to urge the EU institutions to take the issue of access to Tibet into serious consideration on the EU-China visa facilitation agreement.
The resolution has a deep tone of Parliament’s anger against China’s arrogance, deception, and disregard of international covenants. In fact, it urged China to ratify the international covenant on civil and political rights.
After the resolution, the High Representative Mogherini responded to reiterate EU’s commitment to human rights at the same level, if not more important, than economic interest. She further shared that EU authorities bring up the issue of human rights with Chinese counterparts with robustness and frankness. She called on the members to support the Commission’s stand in their political parties and their respective governments.