[AFP]
PARIS: Three environmentalists, among them the French Greens Party candidate for EU Parliament Pascal Durand, on Wednesday wrote to François Hollande demanding France’s Ambassador to Beijing make a visit to Tibet, while France receives Chinese President Xi Jinping.
On the occasion of the visit to France of Xi Jinping, “we wanted to remind you of the fate of more than a hundred Tibetans who have set themselves on fire since February 2009, to protest against gross violations of human rights in Tibet,” wrote Pascal Durand, Greens Party Senator André Gattolin and Regional Councillor Jean- Marc Brûlé, in a letter to the President which AFP has a copy.
They felt “that the French Republic must obtain the authorization for her China representative in Beijing, HE Sylvie Bermann, also to go as soon as possible in areas affected by the self-immolations and report the situation on ground : it is this request that we send you. “
The French ambassador should thus follow “the examples of her American, Australian and Canadian counterparts.”
“The access of humanitarian organizations, journalists, travelers or diplomats to these regions is strongly controlled by Beijing, which does not want to show the world the plight of the people living in the territory it administers,” the environmentalists argued.
“In doing so, France shows that relations with China are not limited to a purely economic partnership but that the issue of human rights and fundamental freedoms remains at the heart of the foreign policy objectives,” they added.
“The president should avail the visit of his counterpart to engage in a frank dialogue on violations of human rights and public freedoms in China, especially in Tibet but also in Xinjiang province,” the letter said.
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