MB Civic

MEDIA RELEASE, Australia Tibet Council
5 February 2009

Australian and Chinese officials will
belatedly meet on Monday for the Twelfth
Australia-China Human Rights Dialogue,
originally scheduled for late last year.
Meanwhile authorities in Lhasa have
arrested dozens of Tibetans as part of a
renewed military crackdown ahead of the
50th Anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan
Uprising on 10 March. Also on Monday
China will come under examination at the
UN in Geneva. The Chinese Government
has been accused of subverting the UN
Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic
Review process.

“For over a decade China has skilfully
avoided any real accountability for its
human rights violations. It has engaged
willing governments in confidential
bilateral dialogues while simultaneously
subverting the UN and continuing its
brutal human rights violations in Tibet,”
said Paul Bourke, Executive Office of the
Australia Tibet Council.

NGOs have criticised the Federal
Government’s over-reliance on the
annual confidential dialogue to bring
improvements in human rights in China
and Tibet, arguing this enables China to
avoid public scrutiny and harms
multilateral efforts to promote human
rights.

A report(1) released by the Australia Tibet
Council (ATC), containing recommendations
for issues the Australian Government
should raise during next week’s dialogue,
paints a grim picture of intensifying and
systematic human rights violations in Tibet.
The report summarises the numerous
accounts of arbitrary arrests, fatalities and
incidents of torture following peaceful
demonstrations in 2008 and outlines ever
more oppressive measures to quell dissent
ahead of the politically sensitive 50th
anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising.

The report also slams Australia’s bilateral
dialogue for its lack of transparency and
failure to deliver concrete outcomes. It
recommends a series of improvements
including reporting to parliament, an
observer role for NGOs and establishing
time-bound objectives. It further
recommends the continuation of the
dialogue only as part of a multifaceted
approach to human rights in China and
calls on the Prime Minister to publicly
criticise the Chinese Governments’ ongoing
crackdown in Tibet.

“Tibetans are facing the harshest
repression since the Cultural Revolution,”
continued Mr. Bourke, citing strict new
measures to punish dissidents and restrict
all expressions of Tibetan culture ahead of
the 50th Anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s
exile and full Chinese takeover of
Tibet. “Despite a promising start, our PM
now looks to be falling into the old pattern
of dealing with these issues through a
once-a-year official dialogue.”

Early last year the Prime Minister hinted at
a stronger and more public approach to
human rights in China and Tibet, raising
the Tibet issue publicly in Beijing in April.
However, Mr. Rudd has remained almost
silent on Tibet since, despite the
intensifying military crackdown and
collapse of the Tibet-China dialogue.

The Twelfth Australia-China Human Rights
Dialogue will take place in Canberra on
Monday and Tuesday of next week (9, 10
February).

On Monday morning China is also up for
assessment by the Human Rights Council’s
Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The
Chinese Government has been accused of
undermining the UPR’s reporting
procedures and attempting to dissuade UN
members from asking questions on Tibet(2).

For more information:

Dr. Simon Bradshaw, Campaign Coordinator,
Australia Tibet Council: 0404  859 806

Paul Bourke, Executive Officer, Australia Tibet
Council: 0419 420 526

Notes:

1. Download a .pdf of the report:
http://www.atc.org.au/achrdrfeb09

2. A story posted on Tibetan news site
Phayul on 1 February claims “several
sources say that the Chinese Mission to the
UN in Geneva is trying to gag UN members
especially Western countries from raising
questions on Tibet”. Tibet support groups
are further concerned that the Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights’
compilation of stakeholder submissions
(one of three source documents for the
UPR) fails to represent accurately and
impartially the present human rights
situation in Tibet. This failure is due to
information from Chinese Government-operated NGOs (“GONGOs”) being given equal weight alongside information from
respected and independent international
human rights monitors. China’s own report
to the UPR is silent on Tibet.