In response to an appeal from the Office of Tibet Brussels, Mr Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice-President of the European Parliament responsible for human rights and democracy and member of the Tibet Intergroup has condemned the Chinese authorities’ ‘brutality’ at Kirti monastery in Ngaba, northeastern Tibet and has called on them to fully respect the UN human rights convention.
BRUSSELS: Mr McMillan-Scott, who has visited Tibet in 1996 while writing a report on EU-China relations and met His Holiness the Dalai Lama several times, in a press release today said: “this brutality is typical of the Chinese regime. The authorities must show restraint by withdrawing the armed security police and ending the lockdown
“All those detained, an estimated of 35 Tibetans, must be released immediately and the threats of relocation of monks from the monastery for “re-education” must end.”
“I strongly condemn the treatment of the local lay people who were beaten whilst trying to prevent the armed police from entering the monastery. The Chinese have the responsibility to resolve the grievances of the locals in a fair and transparent way.”
MEP Fiorello Provera, Vice-Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, earlier in a letter to EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Lady Ashton, expressed his deep concern by the deteriorating situation and for the fate of the monks from Kirti Monastery and called on her to take a firm stance against the ongoing abuses.
He also urged the High Representative to closely monitor the situation in order to promptly condemn cases of arbitrary detention and prevent further human rights violations in Tibet.
MEP Kirstiina Ojuland and MEP Csaba Sogor have proposed the situation in Ngaba prefecture as the topic for Urgency Resolutions for the next Plenary in Strasbourg.