A Spanish judge opened court proceedings Monday in a lawsuit brought by a human rights group seeking to have genocide charges brought against China over its treatment of Tibet.
The Committee to Support Tibet filed the suit against several former Chinese officials under a Spanish law allowing prosecution of human rights crimes even if they were committed in another country.
National Court Judge Ismael Moreno will hear witnesses before deciding whether to file charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, state terrorism and torture against former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, ex-Prime Minister Li Peng and five military and security officials in Tibet, some of whom have retired.
On Monday, nearly six months after the court agreed to consider the case, Moreno was to question Thubten Wangchen, a Tibetan refugee who has lived in Spain for 24 years.
Alan Cantos, coordinator of the Committee to Support Tibet, said Wangchen was expected to recount his personal experience under the Chinese occupation. Cantos said Wangchen’s mother was taken by Chinese forces in the village of Kyirong when he was a child in 1958, and that she has not been heard from since.
Moreno has sent requests to Britain and Canada to help him question two other alleged victims of international crimes committed in Tibet, Cantos said.
He has also asked Spain’s Foreign Ministry for information on all United Nations documents and resolutions regarding Tibet, the posts held by the accused, and any information it may have on possible Tibetan victims.
In its lawsuit, the human rights group says that more than a million Tibetans have been killed or have gone missing since China occupied Tibet in 1951.
