DHARAMSHALA: Human Rights Watch has called on the president of France to raise the issue of deteriorating human rights situation in Tibet when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping this week. In addition to France, Mr Xi will visit Germany, Belgium as well as the EU headquarters on his first Europe tour since becoming the president. 

“French President Francois Hollande should publicly deliver a strong message in defense of human rights to Chinese President Xi Jinping,” Human Rights Watch said in a letter yesterday. 

“On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relationships between China and France, President Hollande should clearly set out France’s expectations that China needs to respect basic human rights,” said Jean Marie Fardeau, France director of Human Rights Watch. “These principles should be stated in private, but also in public.”

The letter specifically calls on President Hollande to ask President Xi about specific cases of persecuted human rights defenders, including imprisoned 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia; Uighur economist Ilham Tohti; and lawyer Xu Zhiyong and express concern about activist Cao Shunli, who died on March 14 in a Beijing hospital following her arbitrary detention in September 2013. 

The letter also urged Mr Hollande to express concern about the deteriorating human rights situations for ethnic minorities, particularly in Tibet and Xinjiang.

“If human rights issues are omitted from the public dimension of this visit, it would send entirely the wrong signal to those in China who expect France to play a leadership role to improve the deteriorating human rights conditions.

Meanwhile, the Tibet Support Groups based in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, have sent a letter to the heads of these governments to ensure Tibet is discussed as part of their formal agenda during meetings with Xi Jinping.

“China’s unacceptable policies inflict widespread, systematic repression across Tibet, affecting Tibetans’ everyday lives. Egregious policies in Tibet include Beijing’s interference in religious practice, the use of the Tibetan language in education, the removal of millions of Tibet’s nomads from their ancestral grasslands, the implementation of Patriotic re-­‐education campaigns, and the widespread vilification of the Dalai Lama,” the letter said.

The Tibet Support Groups called on the European leaders to urge Xi Jinping to resume dialogue with representatives of the exiled Tibetan leadership, to advance discussions towards a lasting solution to the issue of Tibet.