On June 26, ICT President Matteo Mecacci attended the meeting between the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Al Hussein and ICT Chairman of the Board, Richard Gere, in Geneva, where the human rights situation inside Tibet was discussed.
Following that, Matteo Mecacci was in Brussels on June 27 and 28 to meet with representatives from different national and European Institutions.
He first met with the Austrian Permanent Representation to the EU, a week before the start of Austria’s EU Presidency, and presented ideas and concrete recommendations for EU policy on Tibet.
He then met with MEP (Member of the European Parliament) Cristian Dan Preda, who is member of both the Foreign Affairs Committee and Human Rights Subcommittee at the European Parliament.
Matteo Mecacci then presented ICT report “Access Denied: China’s enforces 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 together with the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for Western Europe, Tashi Phuntsok, and several staff members of the European Parliament.
He also met a representative of the Belgian Foreign Affairs Ministry and the former President of the European Economic and Social Committee, Mr. Henri Malosse. In all these meetings Matteo Mecacci raised 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.
Matteo Mecacci also had a meeting with the EU Special Envoy for the freedom of religion and belief outside the EU, Mr. Jan Figel’, during which he focused on the lack of religious freedom in Tibet, an issue that the European Parliament has raised many times, and on how this is relevant to Tibetan Buddhists worldwide.
