Belgian Foreign Minster says he finds Nangpa-La incident very hard to accept
Thursday, 26 October 2006, 3:00 p.m.
Brussels: During this afternoon’s question and answer session at the Belgian Parliament, Mr. Walter Muls, President of the Inter-parliamentary Group for Tibet raised the following questions in connection with the Nangpa-La shootings to the Foreign Minister of Belgium:
1. As a Minister of Foreign Affairs, do you plan to request the Human Rights Council of the UN to put this case in their agenda? (Their second session starts on the 27th November)
2. Will you ask the Chinese government to immediately release the Tibetans who are under arrest?
3. Do you intend to ask the Chinese government – just as your Canadian colleague did – a full, independent investigation on this matter?
The Minister spoke on his own behalf and replied, “It is very hard to accept that nowadays things like this happen at border control posts”.
Further he stated that during the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue, EU raised this issue and asked China to do everything possible to find the soldiers guilty of the shooting and to take them to the court. He assured the parliament that he would report back to the members once more information became available.
According to a story in yesterday’s edition of Belgian daily newspaper LE SOIR, headlined “Reynders worries about Tibet in Beijing”, reported that Mr. Didier Reynders, Minister of Finance, Vice-Premier Minister and President of Mouvement Reformateur (French Liberal Political Group) is on a mission this week in China.
As the first member of the Belgian Government Minister Reynders will pay a short visit to Tibet on Friday and Saturday and he was asked to raise the Human Rights, Autonomy for Tibet and the six political prisoners highlighted by Amnesty International issues with the Chinese officials.
Report sent by the EU Coordination Office, Brussels.