COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights Fifty-seventh session
25 July – 12 August 2005
Agenda Item 2: QUESTION OF THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD
Oral statement by Mr. Tenzin Samphel Katya on behalf of the Society for Threatened Peoples.
Mr. Chairperson,
The Society for Threatened Peoples is gravely concerned about the current state of human rights in Tibet, particularly since the adoption of resolution 1991/10 by the Sub-Commission. In its most serious ever attempt to interfere in Tibet’s traditional system of recognising Tibetan spiritual teachers, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has gone to the extent of saying that Beijing will choose the next Dalai Lama. The Tibet Autonomous Region chairman Qiangba Puncog was quoted by Asianews/SCMP on 19 July this year as saying that “if the spiritual leader, who turned 70 on July 6, dies in exile, Beijing would follow Tibetan Buddhist precedent to choose his reincarnation.”
In this connection, we wish to highlight the case of the disappearance for the past ten years of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the Eleventh Panchen Lama of Tibet and his parents. On 17 May this year, Tibetans and their supporters worldwide organised a “Global Vigil for Tibet’s Panchen Lama” to mark 10 years of his disappearance. This international concern on the whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima has continued for the past 10 years and received interventions from Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and thematic mandates of the UN Commission on Human Rights. The boy, who was for a long time regarded as the world’s youngest political prisoner, is today just 16 years of age and his well-being and whereabouts remain unconfirmed.
In 1996, when the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) reviewed the PRC’s first report, the international community was just becoming aware of the significance of China’s abduction of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family, and China’s outrageous attempt to install another boy, Gyaltsen Norbu, as the Panchen Lama. Despite the case being raised vigorously within the CRC and in its verbal inquiries to the PRC, the Committee’s concluding observations on China’s report included only an oblique reference to the case, which stated: [t]he Committee expresses its deep concern in connection with the violations of human rights of the Tibetan religious minority. State intervention in religious principles and procedures seems to be most unfortunate for the whole generation of boys and girls among the Tibetan population.”
Mr. Chairperson, in 1997, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance of UNCHR while expressing concern about the whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima asked the Chinese authorities “to provide documents “supporting its statement that he and his parents had appealed to the Government for protection and at present are “leading normal lives and enjoying perfect health.” China has so far failed to respond to this request from the Working Group.
In October 2000 a British delegation was told by the Chinese authorities that the boy was well and attending school. They said that his parents did not want international figures and the media intruding into his life. Two photographs claimed to be of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima , XIth Panchen Lama were shown to the British delegation. However it was impossible to determine the boy’s identity or location since the British officials were not given the photos to ascertain.
In August 2001, a Polish Parliamentary delegation visiting Lhasa was told that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was healthy; the delegation was promised photos of the boy within six weeks but never received them. Later, the Polish Government received a letter from the Chinese embassy in Warsaw stating that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his parents did not want their peaceful life disturbed by strangers, and that the Chinese government “respects freedom of choice for its citizens and hopes that the Polish people would understand that too.”
Mr. Chairperson, AFP reported on 19 August, 2002 that during her last official visit to China, the then UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs. Mary Robinson raised the case of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima to the Chinese authorities and also requested access to the child’s parents. Officials told Mrs. Robinson that the boy is healthy and that his parents wanted him to have privacy. “I urged that perhaps his parents could come forward and at least that there would be some way of verifying the situation which continues to be a very real concern,” Robinson was quoted by AFP report. She added that the UN office had received thousands of communications seeking an investigation into the whereabouts of the boy.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) still refuses to publicly declare the whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima after his detention in May 1995 when he was six years old. The boy and his parents have now spent the last 10 years in custody. Reincarnation is at the heart of Tibetan Buddhist practices. Through its interference in the identification process and spiritual training of important incarnates, the Chinese authorities not only deliberately create division among the Tibetan people but also showed complete disregard to one of the fundamental principles of the Tibetan Buddhist faith.
It is tragic that as Tibetans mark the tenth year of the Panchen Lama’s disappearance, so little has changed. The Chinese authorities have only grudgingly confirmed that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is “under the government’s protection.” More recently, they have deflected inquiries about him by claiming he is “well and attending school”, and enjoys sports and other activities like “a normal Chinese boy”; and that his parents did not want international figures or the media intruding into his life. However, at no time in the past decade has any neutral observer been given access to the boy or his parents, nor has the Chinese government provided any concrete evidence to verify their assertions.
Given the centrality of the Panchen Lama’s role in Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan culture, not to mention his status as a minor, China’s failure to address meaningfully the inquiries of UN human rights mechanisms, including that from CRC and other international actors regarding this case is striking.
Mr. Chairperson, Tibetans are today trapped in the contradictions between the promise of “freedom of religious belief” in the Chinese Constitution and the enforcement of the atheist doctrine of “communist spiritual civilization” by the Chinese Communist Party. The current campaign promoting atheism in Tibet has gone hand-in-hand with an increasing number of restrictions on public expressions of belief such as bans on hoisting prayer flags and pilgrimages. China controls and restricts the limits and depth of Tibetan Buddhist transmissions to the extent that the essence of Tibetan Buddhism is now degenerating.
In conclusion, Society for Threatened Peoples appeals the Sub-Commission to pay a close attention to the human rights situation in Tibet by reaffirming its resolution 1991/10 which urged China “fully to respect the fundamental human rights and freedoms of the Tibetan people.” We also appeal to the members of the Sub-Commission to help the Tibetan call for the CRC to be granted access by the Chinese authorities to Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, in order ascertain his educational attainment, cultural awareness, mental state and physical development.
I thank you, Mr. Chairperson.
