Kathmandu, January 28 – Britain has asked Nepal not to close down two offices run by Tibetan refugees in Kathmandu.
“We regret the government action,” said Mitra Pariyar, spokesman of the British embassy in Kathmandu. The embassy made a representation to the Nepalese foreign affairs ministry Thursday.
Last Friday, Nepal closed down the Tibetan Welfare Centre and Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office that have for nearly five decades worked for the welfare of Tibetan refugees.
The offices had been working since the late 1950s, when the Dalai Lama fled China along with thousands of Tibetans following China’s annexation of Tibet.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kathmandu that works with the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office to facilitate the journey of refugees from Nepal to India told IANS they were aware of the closure.
“However, it will not affect the protection and assistance by the UNHCR to the Tibetan new arrivals,” a UNHCR official said. The community’s cause is also being espoused by some of Nepal’s human rights activists.
Sudip Pathak, who heads the NGO Human Rights Organisation of Nepal, said his organisation supported the right of the Tibetans to practise their religion and traditional culture in a peaceful manner in Nepal.
Pathak had met Nepal’s home secretary Chandi Prasad Shrestha Thursday to advocate the reopening of the two centres.
Pathak was optimistic that the government would eventually allow the two organisations to continue working as social outfits.
The US government that had in the past lodged protests against the deportation of Tibetan refugees, however, had no immediate reaction.
The Indian embassy has not made any comments on the issue. The embassy has started issuing travel documents to Tibetans in Kathmandu to allow them to proceed to India.
The Nepal government’s move is perceived as trying to placate its bigger neighbour China that has been trying to crack down on the exodus of Tibetans to India via Nepal.
The Nepalese government last Friday sent a letter to the two Tibetan offices asking them to close down since they were not registered.
The Tibetans say they can’t register their organisations as Nepal’s laws do not allow non-Nepalese to do so. The law also prevents them from seeking employment in Nepal.
Since their inception in Kathmandu in the late 1950s, the community has been urging the Nepalese authorities to allow them to register social and economic organisations and allow them employment opportunities in Nepal.
