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Brussels, 18 April 2019– In a resolution adopted at its plenary session today in Strasbourg, the European Parliament has singled out China for its persecution of Tibetans and other ethnic and religious groups and demanded that the Chinese authorities respect their fundamental rights and freedoms.
The resolution, adopted with a large majority of 505 voices (with only 18 against and 47 abstentions) expresses the European Parliament’s concerns about the increasing repression faced by many ethnic and religious “minorities” in China, in particular Tibetans, Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Christians. It calls amongst others on China to close the so-called “political reeducation camps” in Xinjiang (known to Uyghurs as East Turkestan) and to “uphold the linguistic, cultural, religious and other fundamental freedoms of Tibetans.”
“ICT welcomes this resolution, which sends once again the strong message that China’s treatment of Tibetans and other ethnic and religious groups is unacceptable,” said ICT’s EU Policy Director Vincent Metten. “It also highlights the gap between the deep interest and support of the elected representatives of European citizens for human rights in China and Tibet, and the discussions at the EU-China level, which continue to prioritize trade and economic relations over human rights concerns.”
The resolution was indeed adopted a week after the 21st EU-China Summit, where despite President Tusk’s remarks that human rights were for the EU “as important as economic interests” and that some individual cases were raised with Chinese leaders, human rights issues were largely marginalized. The resolution recalls the importance of the EU raising human rights “at every political level” with the Chinese authorities, which is a much welcome reminder, in particular given the limits of the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue the last round of which brought “no substantial results,” despite the efforts of the European External Action Service.
On Tibet more specifically, the resolution expresses concern that “China’s criminal law is being abused to persecute Tibetans and Buddhists, whose religious activities are equated with ‘separatism’; deplores the fact that the environment for practising Buddhism in Tibet has worsened significantly after the Tibetan protests of March 2008, with the Chinese Government adopting a more pervasive approach to ‘patriotic education’.“
The European Parliament condemns China’s “patriotic education” campaigns, including interferences in the management of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and asks the Chinese authorities to refrain from forcibly resettling Tibetan nomads. It also calls on China to immediately release Tibetans detained solely for having exercised their right to freedom of expression, including Tibetan language rights advocate Tashi Wangchuk and Lobsang Dargye, a Kirti monk who was arrested in March 2017 after he carried a solo-protest calling for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet.
It also reiterates the European Parliament’s call for unhindered access to Tibet for EU diplomats, journalists and citizens “in reciprocity for the free and open access to the entire territories of the EU Member States that Chinese travellers enjoy,” –a call inspired by the adoption of the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act in the US last year and which was recently echoed by a number of concerned parliamentarians across Europe on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising of 1959.
During the debate on the resolution, Jo Leinen, Chair of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the People’s Republic of China, called on the European Union to ensure China’s respect for the universality and indivisibility of human rights, recognized by the country in the joint Summit statement. Thomas Mann, President of the European Parliament’s Tibet Interest Group, said that he hoped that the next Parliament would remain the voice of Tibetans and human rights in the world. “It is the role of the European continent (…) to show that human rights are non-negotiable,” added Nathalie Griesbeck, the Chairman of the group.
Concluding the debate, EU High Representative Federica Mogherini shared the assessment of the Parliament and presented the efforts of the European Union to bring positive change for Tibetans Uyghurs and other groups, stressing the importance of coherency and unity of EU institutions, but also of European Union Member States on this issue.
Below is the full text of the resolution, also available here.
