Elena Gaita delivering the joint Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights-ICT statement at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Presenting a joint statement with Helsinki Foundation at the interactive dialogue with the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGIED), Elena Gaita said, “during the period of April 2010 to February 2014 the International Campaign for Tibet in its report ‘Acts of Significant Evil: The Criminalization of Self-Immolation’ recorded at least 41 cases of individuals feared disappeared because of these new measures. We endorse the Working Group’s call to State’s to take specific measures to prevent threats, intimidation and reprisals against victims of enforced disappearances including family members, witnesses and human rights defenders.”
The ICT–Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights Foundation Statement can be found below.
Human Rights Council
Twenty-seventh session
Item 3, Interactive Dialogue-Report of Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, September 12, 2014
Statement by Helsinki Foundation and International Campaign for Tibet,
delivered by Elena Gaita
Mr. President,
We wish to thank the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances for its report and for its continued communications with governments in order to assist families of disappeared persons.
During the reporting period the Working Group transmitted seven cases under its urgent action procedure and eight urgent appeals to the government of the Peoples Republic of China. We are concerned that the majority of the cases transmitted are of Tibetans, many of whose whereabouts remain unknown.
We share the Working Group’s conclusion that enforced disappearance continues to be used across the world with the false and pernicious belief that it is an useful tool to preserve national security and combat terrorism or organized crime. In the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures enforced or involuntary disappearances continue to occur owing to the actions of the Chinese government’s “stability maintenance” approach. In December 2012, the Chinese government announced new guidelines to punish family or community members of self immolators. Subsequent to these guidelines, there has been a raft of arrests and disappearances of family members or anyone deemed to be associated with Tibetans who have self-immolated. During the period of April 2010 to February 2014 the International Campaign for Tibet in its report ‘Acts of Significant Evil: The Criminalization of Self-Immolation’ recorded at least 41 cases of individuals feared disappeared because of these new measures. We endorse the Working Group’s call to States to take specific measures to prevent threats, intimidation and reprisals against victims of enforced disappearances including family members, witnesses and human rights defenders.
Our concerns continue for Gedhun Choeyki Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama of Tibet who disappeared in 1995 at the age of 6. Although the Chinese government has admitted taking him they have continually refused to divulge any information about him or his whereabouts. We asked the Chinese government will provide specific information about this whereabouts and allow independent authorities to have access to him, as requested by a number of UN human rights mechanisms.
We hope the government of the People’s Republic of China will reply positively to the Working Group’s request made in February 2013 for an invitation to undertake a visit to the country.
I thank you Mr. President.
The entire statement can be heard here at 00:28:32 »