http://international.sp.nl/bericht/109241/130510-van_bommel_china_denies_oppression_of_tibetans_and_uighurs.html
SP International
May 10, 2013
CHINA DENIES OPPRESSION OF TIBETANS AND UIGHURS
May 10th, 2013 • SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel has
expressed disappointment at the reactions which he has encountered in
China in response to his concerns about the position of minorities
there. ‘Reports from human rights organisations have shown time and
again the serious abuses of rights, including those of the Tibetan and
Uighur communities,’ says Van Bommel. ‘Political bigwigs in China tell
me, however, that there’s nothing in these reports and that everything
is going extraordinarily well. These reactions show clearly that when
it comes to respect for the human rights of minorities in China
there’s still a long way to go.’
Van Bommel spent last week in China with a delegation from the Dutch
Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. The delegation visited a
number of towns and cities including Beijing and Shanghai and held
talks with members of the People’s National Congress. In addition to
the position of minorities, discussions focussed on respect for human
rights and on economic relations between the Netherlands and China, as
well as China’s geopolitical role on the world stage.
The political dialogue between China and representatives of the
Tibetan community has been stagnant for years. The many suicides by
immolation by Tibetan monks in China, which already total more than a
hundred, are a reaction to the lack of any prospect of change and a
protest against persistent oppression. Reports from human rights
organisations indicate that people who are in any way involved in
these immolations are being treated with increasing severity. ‘Vice-
minister Si Ta of the United Front Work Department, himself a Tibetan,
speaks forcefully against the reports of repression,’ says Van Bommel,
‘but the fact that our delegation was not allowed to visit Tibet, as
has also been the case in the past for the Netherlands’ human rights
ambassador, says quite enough by itself.’
It recently became clear that two Chinese who had served as
interpreters on around a thousand asylum requests from Uighurs,
members of a Muslim minority community in China, had acted as spies
for the Chinese government. Amnesty International had recently
reported that returned Uighurs were sometimes in danger of prison or
worse. ‘In the talks Si Ta said that freedom of language and religion
were rights and that this applied also to the Uighurs,’ said Van
Bommel, ‘but he stressed the problem that Uighurs abroad were
organising for political reasons to bring about China’s break-up. In
my view, however, what was most telling was that Si Ta could not
convincingly refute the allegation that a dreadful fate awaited
returned Uighurs in China.'