DHARAMSHALA: The US government has expressed serious concern over the deteriorating human rights in Tibet and urged China to hold unconditional talks with His Holiness the Dalai Lama or his representatives.

Uzra Zeya, who led the US side in the annual human rights dialogue with China on 30-31 July, said that there has been increasing religious restrictions in Tibet and Xinjiang.

“I think we have continued to see a deterioration in the over all situation in China,” said Ms Zeya.

“We also expressed deep concern about China’s stepped-up attempts to silence dissent and tighten controls over Tibetans and Uighurs, emphasizing that policies ostensibly designed to maintain stability are counterproductive when they deny Chinese citizens their universal human rights and fundamental freedoms,” she said.

“We also urged the Chinese government to engage in substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, without preconditions,” Ms Zeya said.

The US also raised some specific cases of political prisoners, including Dhondup Wangchen, a Tibetan political prisoner, who have been victims of the Chinese government’s clampdown for expressing their concerns about the broader denial of rights affecting China’s citizens.

Human Rights Watch has urged the US government to press the Chinese government to adopt concrete and clear benchmarks, and evaluate the progress in subsequent dialogues. “Without these benchmarks, the human rights dialogue risks serving as a perfunctory diplomatic exercise, rather than a genuinely useful advocacy tool,” it said in a statement on 30 July.

The US government could further strengthen such efforts by requiring all US agencies that have regular relationships with China to raise salient human rights issues in meetings and to raise them regularly in public statements and media interviews, including with Chinese-language media, it said.

“US officials should use this opportunity to do what people in China want: to try their best to hold the Chinese government accountable for its human rights violations,” said Sophie Richardson, China director of Human Rights Watch.

The US-China dialogue took place against the backdrop of alarming escalation in self-immolations by Tibetans to protest against the Chinese government’s repressive rule. Since 2009 over 120 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in Tibet, calling for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet and freedom for Tibetans. 

The US state department in its annual human rights report said that Tibetans in Tibet faced severe religious repression and societal discrimination.

In June this year, the US Ambassador to China, Mr Gary Locke, made a rare Chinese government-sponsored visit to Tibet’s capital Lhasa. During his meeting with local officials, Mr Locke lobbied for opening access to Tibet to foreign diplomats, journalists and tourists and stressed the “importance of preserving the Tibetan people’s cultural heritage, including its unique linguistic, religious and cultural traditions.”

“We remain concerned by the deteriorating human rights situation in Tibetan areas, including the tragic self-immolations. The US urges Beijing to engage in substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives without preconditions,” US Embassy deputy spokesman Justin Higgins had said on ambassador Locke’s visit to Tibet.

Secretary of State John Kerry had raised concerns over the human rights situation in Tibet during the two-day US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue held this June.