(TibetanReview.net, Mar04’25) – The UN human rights chief has said Mar 3 he was “concerned about the impact of education policy and the restriction of freedom of expression and religion in the Tibet Autonomous Region” and vowed to continue to raise these issues in his ongoing discussions with the Chinese government.
Presenting his Global Update before the 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, also emphasized that while China has engaged with the international human rights system, progress in addressing systemic violations has been insufficient, and the international community must ramp up its efforts, reported the ANI news service Mar 3.
Welcoming Türk for explicitly referring to the situation in Tibet, Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (savetibet.org) said in a statement Mar 3: “We welcome the explicit reference to Tibet in the UN High Commissioner’s statement. This is especially important because his predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, didn’t reference the deeply troubling situation in Tibet forcefully. The international community, the United Nations, and nation-states must once again focus more on the situation in Tibet. This is about peaceful conflict resolution and the survival of a civilization.”
Overall, Turk has particularly highlighted the ongoing persecution in the People’s Republic of China of lawyers, human rights defenders, and citizen journalists, many of whom face arbitrary detention under vague criminal charges.
“While China is engaging with the international human rights system, I refer back to my previous updates raising serious concerns and hope to see meaningful progress on these issues. I continue to make representations on behalf of lawyers, human rights defenders, and citizen journalists who have been arbitrarily detained under vague criminal offences.”
He has called for heightened international pressure on China to address these pervasive human rights violations and respect fundamental freedoms.