By Tenzin Zompa
Dharamshala, June 29: The president of International Campaign for Tibet Matteo Mecacci, and Chairman of the ICT board Richard Gere called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on June 26 in Geneva to discuss human rights situation inside Tibet.
The ICT President also travelled to Brussels to meet with representatives from different national and European Institutions.
Matteo first met with the Austrian Permanent Representation to the EU and presented ideas and concrete recommendations for EU policy on Tibet. He also met with MEP Cristian Dan Preda, who is member of both the Foreign Affairs Committee and Human Rights Subcommittee at the European Parliament.
Matteo presented ICT report “Access Denied: China’s enforced isolation of Tibet, and the case of reciprocity” at the Tibet Interest Group of the European Parliament. Four Members of the European Parliament attended the meeting along with the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for Western Europe, Tashi Phuntsok, and several staff members of the European Parliament.
The issues of the degradation of the human rights situation in Tibet, the problem of access to Tibet for foreign observers, and lack of reciprocity between the EU and China, and how to increase international cooperation on Tibet, in particular between the US and the EU and its Member States, were raised in the meetings.
