Rights group wants China Tibetan shooting inquiry
Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:25 AM IST
NEW YORK (Reuters) - China should allow an independent inquiry into the deadly shooting by Chinese troops on 75 Tibetans fleeing the country's mountainous frontier into Nepal, a U.S.-based human rights group said on Thursday.
Human Rights Watch said Beijing should also rescind any orders that allow border troops to fire on unarmed civilians.
Refugee groups have said that a 17-year-old nun and a man in his twenties were killed in the Sept. 30 shooting, which was captured on video by a group of European mountaineers in the area, at a height of 5,700 meters.
China has said the border guards warned the group and then fired in self-defense when members of the group attacked them. The video shows no such confrontation.
"Despite its pledges to the rule of law, China has never mounted a credible and transparent investigation into questionable actions by its security forces," said Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch Asia deputy director.
"An inquiry undertaken by officials -- who either implicitly or explicitly permitted this shooting -- is likely to lack integrity, so the government must permit an independent body to determine what happened."
Forty-one members of the group who escaped the shooting reached India on Sunday after their 17-day trek from Lhasa, to the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. But another 32 members of the group, mostly children, are missing.
Activists say around 2,500 Tibetans flee China every year for India, mainly to seek the blessings of the Dalai Lama -- Tibet's spiritual leader who fled into exile in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule -- and pursue education.
Tibet has been ruled by China since Communist troops occupied the region in 1950 and Tibetans accuse Beijing of dealing harshly with those among them who press for greater political and religious freedom.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Original release here:
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-10-27T071628Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-273833-2.xml&archived=False
NEW YORK (Reuters) - China should allow an independent inquiry into the deadly shooting by Chinese troops on 75 Tibetans fleeing the country's mountainous frontier into Nepal, a U.S.-based human rights group said on Thursday.
Human Rights Watch said Beijing should also rescind any orders that allow border troops to fire on unarmed civilians.
Refugee groups have said that a 17-year-old nun and a man in his twenties were killed in the Sept. 30 shooting, which was captured on video by a group of European mountaineers in the area, at a height of 5,700 meters.
China has said the border guards warned the group and then fired in self-defense when members of the group attacked them. The video shows no such confrontation.
"Despite its pledges to the rule of law, China has never mounted a credible and transparent investigation into questionable actions by its security forces," said Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch Asia deputy director.
"An inquiry undertaken by officials -- who either implicitly or explicitly permitted this shooting -- is likely to lack integrity, so the government must permit an independent body to determine what happened."
Forty-one members of the group who escaped the shooting reached India on Sunday after their 17-day trek from Lhasa, to the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. But another 32 members of the group, mostly children, are missing.
Activists say around 2,500 Tibetans flee China every year for India, mainly to seek the blessings of the Dalai Lama -- Tibet's spiritual leader who fled into exile in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule -- and pursue education.
Tibet has been ruled by China since Communist troops occupied the region in 1950 and Tibetans accuse Beijing of dealing harshly with those among them who press for greater political and religious freedom.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Original release here:
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-10-27T071628Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-273833-2.xml&archived=False