On this the 10th day of December, every year we commemorate the historic proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose preamble consecrates the respect for human rights and human dignity as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
Yet, every year the world’s proud commemoration of the World Human Rights Day is tarnished by the persistent human rights problems in the world and the collective failure of the free world to realize the legitimate and fundamental rights inherent to all of us as human beings, which constitute common standards to be achieved for all peoples and all nations.
Today, the world is increasingly challenged by how little it has done to save the people of Tibet from the systematic obliteration of their fundamental human rights, culture, religion and identity at the hands of the communist Chinese. Today, the world is increasingly challenged by the indifference it continues to show to China’s blatant violation of the various international human rights conventions and agreements that she has signed and ratified. Today, the world is increasingly challenged by its failure to recognize the fact that the tragedy of Tibet is a crisis of the whole humanity and the defeat of the Tibetan people’s struggle for independence would be a defeat of the principles of equality, justice, freedom and truth the world over.
The most substantial fact about China today, which directly refutes all her claims as well as future claims of progress in human rights is that the Government still maintains that there are ‘legitimate, differing approaches to human rights based on each country’s particular history, culture, social situation, and level of economic development’. A conformist attitude which means that China doesn’t deem it important as well as necessary to submit to internationally accepted norms and standards of human rights and that China will continue to practice its own authoritarian benchmark of communist dictatorial rule.
As a prelude to the continued mockery of world Human Rights Day by China, religious institutions in Tibet are currently reeling under a wave of a major intensification of China’s ‘patriotic re-education campaign’. Launched in 1996, ‘patriotic re-education campaign’ is targeted at brainwashing the monks and nuns at religious institutions against the principles of Buddhism and to force them to denounce His Holiness The Dalai Lama and accept Tibet as a part of China. The recent case of death of three monks of the Drepung Monastery and the arrests and expulsion of more than 70 and the torture that has followed since the monks and nuns refused to accept the demands of the Chinese ‘work team officials’ clearly ascertain China’s absolute intolerance and disrespect of religious freedom and basic human rights in Tibet.
Mr. Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment after concluding his maiden fact-finding mission to China and Tibet on December 2 stated that ‘torture remained widespread in China’. In his scathing statement the UN Special Rapporteur dismissed China’s methods of ‘re-education’ as measures which ‘strike at the very core of human rights to personal integrity, dignity and humanity’ and recommended the abolition of such measures of ‘re-education’ as a ‘systematic form of inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, if not torture’. The Special Rapporteur acknowledged that there was an urgent need for reforms in the Chinese criminal law, the criminal procedure law, the criminal justice system in accordance with the definitions contained in various international conventions such as CAT and ICCPR. Mr. Nowak also called for the elimination of ‘imprecise and sweeping definitions of crimes that leave large discretion t o law enforcement and prosecution authorities such as “endangering national security”, “disrupting social order”, “subverting public order,” etc’.
The principles embodied by the United Nations being the corner stone of a peaceful, secure and free world, the Tibetan Youth Congress welcomes the steps of proposed reform of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. TYC supports the UN General Secretary’s proposal of replacing the Commission on Human Rights with a smaller standing Human Rights Council with its members elected directly by a two-thirds majority of members of the General Assembly. TYC proposes that the Council should be elevated to principal organ status with a high level of participation by NGOs and should abide to the highest human rights standards. TYC hopes that the UN’s promise of reform will meet the legitimate hopes and expectations of the oppressed people of the world.
TYC shares the opinion of the UN on human rights education being fundamental for a society to develop and nurture human rights culture and to promote equality and enhance people’s participation in the decision making process. TYC welcomes the ongoing World Programme for Human Rights Education and expresses its optimism that through its draft Plan of Action, 1.3 billion oppressed people under the communist Chinese regime will be able to share and promote the basic principles of human rights and feel secure in their own homes.
On this World Human Rights Day Tibetan Youth Congress sincerely urges the Tibetan exile diaspora, the friends and supporters of the Tibetan cause and the international community not to lose sight of our commitments to Tibet with politically defined perceptions but to heed and respect the aspirations of the Tibetan people of complete independence unto which our brethrens in Tibet continue to sacrifice their blood and life.
Free Tibet Bhod Gyalo
Kalsang Phuntsok Godrukpa
President
