Versione orginale del comunicato stampa:

 

PRESS RELEASE FROM CAT (Comité de Apoyo al Tibet )

 

5th of August 2008

 

THE SPANISH HIGH COURT (AUDIENCIA NACIONAL) ACCEPTS A NEW LAWSUIT AGAINST CHINESE AUTHORITIES FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN THE RECENT REPRESSION OF THE TIBETAN PEOPLE.

 

THE OLYMPIC GAMES WILL NOT COVER UP THE GENOCIDE.

 

Today 5th of August 2008, the Central Investigative Court nº 1 of the Spanish High Court (Audiencia Nacional) has accepted its competence in the case and admitted the new lawsuit that the CAT presented on the 30th July 2008, nine days before the inauguration of the Olympic Games. Additionally the CAT presented an extension to their original lawsuit. This new lawsuit is for crimes against humanity committed in the recent repression of peaceful demonstrators, while the extension to the existing lawsuit presents new proof of torture resulting in death. As in the previous lawsuit, which had the testimonial support of nearly forty international organizations, the co-plaintiff is the Fundación Casa del Tibet in Barcelona and the private prosecution is its director, Thubten Wangchen, a Tibetan with Spanish nationality.

 

The CAT apologizes for not having been able to present the extension to the lawsuit on 11th July 2008. Due to last minute investigations into acts committed by persons already accused and new persons accused of international crimes committed in Tibet during the latest repression since March 2008, the presentation of the extension was postponed on the very day it was to be presented. As a result, both an extension and a new lawsuit have now been presented (30th July 2008). 

 

The lawsuit has been assigned to Spain ’s Central Court nº 1 under the judge Santiago Pedraz, who is also the judge for the case of genocide of the Mayan people in Guatemala and the lawsuit for war crimes against US military officials in Irak in the Couso case. The judge has requested the presence of the Security Department of the Tibetan Government in Exile: Kalon Ngodup Dongchung and the Director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Righst and Democracy (TCHRD) : Urgen Tenzin in order that they ratify the reports of the  evidence denounced. Similarly the judge has also summoned Sam Zarifi from Amnesty International responsible for the recent report about the repression in Tibet .

 

All the events being published by different sources such as the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), the Tibetan Information Network (TIN), the Tibetan Government in Exile and other human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, are pending extension and greater detail regarding these cases of abuse, given the Chinese Government’s repeated refusal to allow an impartial international investigative commission to visit Tibet , as requested by the consultative body of the United Nations, the International Commission of Jurists, and Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

 

THE NEW LAWSUIT: The lawsuit denounces crimes against humanity for the systematic and generalized killing of Tibetans, the causing of grievous bodily harm, torture and arrests contrary to international law, and forced disappearances of the Tibetan people since 10th March 2008. The lawsuit is based on different reports yielding a total of 203 homicides, more than a thousand seriously injured and 5,972 illegally detained or missing, and the accused are:

 

The Vice President of CAT and research lawyer of the original lawsuit said: “It is an excellent news for the Tibetan people and particularly for the victims that a court of justice again has accepted to investigate these new events that constitute crimes against humanity”.

 

THE EXTENSION TO THE LAWSUIT: the extension denounces new cases of torture resulting in deaths between 1998 and 2004. In addition to being considered international crimes of torture due to having caused the physical destruction of members of the Tibetan national and religious group, these events are also denounced as acts of genocide. The accused are the same as in the initial lawsuit: the maximum responsible being Jiang Zemin, President of China until 2003 but also Party Secretary and head of the People’s Liberation Army until

September 2004.

 

The director of the CAT, Alán Cantos, has declared: "Regardless of their beauty and sporting merit, the Olympic Games should never have been granted to the country with the worst Olympic spirit and human rights record in the world. The condition or expectation, that thanks to the Olympic Games, China would improve its human rights situation not only is not being fulfilled but, on the contrary, quite the opposite seems to be occurring: the human rights situation is worse and the genocide and systematic repression of the Tibetan people continues while the IOC, governments of most countries and the Chinese Government look blithely the other way ! 

 

CAT: Comité de Apoyo al Tibet

Costa Rica 11 (1, A25)

28016 Madrid, Spain

Tel. (0034) 91 350 2414

 

 

 

 

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