BAF alerts EU on HR situations

A two-member team from Bhutanese Advocacy Forum Europe (BAF) called on Jean Lambert, Chairperson of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with South Asia at her office in European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium and highlighted various issues, Monday.

The BAF representatives, after expressing their deep appreciations towards EU’s  continued support to the Bhutanese refugees and for the various development of Bhutan, appraised and requested EU’s serious attention towards systematic annihilation of culture (by changing the age old names of southern villages and towns into imported names from elsewhere), language and dialects, and religion of the southern and eastern Bhutanese and other minorities by perpetuating the policy of Driglam Namzha and through state sponsoring of Drukpa Kazyugpa Buddhism, stated a press release issued by the Forum.

The team also told Lambert that 80,000 Lhosampas, mostly the relatives of exiled citizens, were deprived of their right to vote in the last general election, and might face the same situation in 2013.

It further informed that Lhosampas are denied employment in defense, external affairs, civil aviation, home ministry and other government institutions. Those related to refugees are even not allowed in any government employment.

We also highlighted the continued incarceration of political prisoners from the south (since 1990) and the east (since 1997) in Rabuna and other prisons, one of the delegates said.

The BAF team mentioned the situation of prisoners like Nandalal Katwal (former General Secretary of exile based Bhutan Gurkha National Liberation Front (BGNLF), Dechen Wangmo (former national coordinator of UN funded Global Youth Service Day and Youth Employment Summit), Tenzin G. Zangpo, General Secretary of the Druk National Congress (Democratic) and Shanti Ram Acharya, journalist with exile based Bhutan Reporter.

Meanwhile, it also raised the issue of persecution of Christians all over Bhutan including long-term imprisonment and short-term detention, the statement further said.

Furthermore, the BAF team urged European Commission and the European Council to clarify the EU policy in relation to the rights of willing Bhutanese refugees to return and situations of grave human rights violations in Bhutan.

“The team also sought a   clarification   from   the   European   Parliament on what action it took to implement its past resolutions on Bhutanese refugees and what role it has been playing and will play in order to raise human rights issues with Bhutan government.”

In her response Lambert briefed the team about her last visit to Bhutan in 2011 during which she strongly raised the issues concerning Bhutanese refugee repatriation, of those people whose voting rights have been deprived in the last election and urge Bhutan government to seriously work towards resolving those issues.

“I heard for the first time Mr Thinley (the prime Minister of Bhutan) calling refugees in the camps in Nepal instead of calling them people in the camps, which he usually prefers to call the Bhutanese refugees in Nepal,” the statement quoted Lambert as telling to the BAF team.

She further said, “European Union is fed up with Bhutan’s time buying tactic in solving refugee related problem. EU will in its 2013 election monitoring process focus mainly in the south to ascertain if those deprived groups are again prevented from voting.”

According to Lambert, renaming of villages and towns in southern Bhutan is a violation of cultural rights of the southern Bhutanese and should not be done.

“I will urgently ask my delegations in New Delhi to take up this issue with Bhutan. We’ll also study the status of political prisoners,” Lambert said.

The visiting BAF team submitted a memorandum attaching a list of Bhutanese political prisoners, a list of old and new names of southern Bhutan’s villages and towns and a press freedom report compiled by one exiled journalist.

In another occasion, the same BAF team screened the documentary, Politics of Bhutan by Jogen Gazmere, a former AI prisoner of conscience, followed by a power point presentation on the genesis of Bhutanese refugee crisis at South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF). The SADF is a lobby group of south Asia at the European parliament based in Brussels office in Brussels.

BAF delegates appealed SADF to actively pursue the cases of Bhutanese refugee issues and other related to democracy and human rights in Bhutan.

Paulo Casaca, Founder and Executive Director of the SADF, after appreciating the team’s efforts, thanked them for their splendid presentation.

“We have now fully understood the issue and will do our best to take up the issue with appropriate bodies at the European Union”, said Paulo, who is a former member of European Parliament from Portugal.

(With inputs from Hem Rizal from the Netherlands)