The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) welcomes a statement by several UN human rights experts, whose comments included a discussion of the cases of nine missing Tibetans. The six UN special rapporteurs and representatives of three working groups on specific human rights violations are demanding that Beijing provide information on the “fate and whereabouts” of the nine Tibetans. The UN experts also call for information about other victims of Chinese human rights violations. Among them is the well-known Uyghur economist and activist Ilham Tohti, who has been in Chinese custody for eleven years and was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament.
“We expressly welcome the fact that the UN experts are persistently advocating on behalf of persecuted Tibetans, Uyghur, and Chinese activists and human rights defenders to the Chinese government,” the International Campaign for Tibet said.
“The thematic diversity of the human rights areas represented by the signatories of the communication sheds more light on the growing extent of the problem we are dealing with in the People’s Republic of China. The international community must not turn a blind eye to this report and draw firm conclusions for its dealings with the Chinese rulers. The letter from the UN experts underscores the fact that the Chinese government is a deeply autocratic dictatorship that has nothing in common with rule of law, democracy and human rights,” ICT stated.
The Tibetans specifically mentioned in the statement are five Tibetan monks who were arrested in August 2022 in the eastern Tibetan county of Serthar for burning incense and saying prayers. Their names are given as Chugdar, Gelo, Tsedo, Bhamo and Kori.
These five Tibetans were subsequently taken to an unknown location, and their relatives were not allowed to send them food. Monk Chugdar is said to have died in custody a few days after his arrest, “where he was allegedly subjected to severe beatings and other forms of torture and ill-treatment,” according to the statement released by United Nations human rights experts.
The experts are also demanding information from Beijing about two Tibetan monks from the Kirti monastery in eastern Tibet and two other Tibetans who were allegedly arrested by the Chinese authorities in September 2024. Since their wrongful arrest, there has been no information about the fate and whereabouts of the Tibetans Lobsang Samten, Lobsang Trinley, Wangkyi and Tsering Tashi, or the accusations against them.
The joint statement was signed by six UN special rapporteurs and three representatives of working groups on specific human rights violations. Particularly significant for the Tibetan cases were the topics of forced or involuntary disappearance of persons and arbitrary detention in the case of the working groups. The areas of activity of the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of opinion, peaceful assembly and freedom of association, the situation of human rights defenders and freedom of religion and belief also played a major role.