Spain drops probe into Tibet crackdown - judicial source

Saturday, February 27, 2010

AFP
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File Photo: Unrest in Tibet in March 2008

MADRID — A Spanish judge Friday dropped an investigation into China's crackdown on unrest that erupted in Tibet in March 2008, judicial sources said.

The probe was the result of a suit filed by a Tibetan rights groups, the Tibet Support Committee, against eight Chinese leaders, including Defence Minister Liang Guanglie and Minister for State Security Geng Huichang.

National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz had agreed to hear the case in August, 2008, just days before the opening of the Beijing Olympics.

He was acting under Spain's principle of "universal competence" under which Spanish courts can hear cases of genocide and crimes against humanity wherever they occur and whatever the nationality of the defendant.

But Pedraz was forced to drop the case Friday as a result of limitations imposed on that principle by the Spanish parliament last year following diplomatic pressure from a number of countries, the sources said.

The parliament decided to restrict such cases to those involving Spanish victims or those in which the suspects are on Spanish soil.

The director of the Tibet Support Committee, Alan Cantos, expressed regret at Friday's ruling and said his organisation planned to appeal.

"It is deeply disappointing at all levels, particularly for the victims, families and witnesses that were involved in the case, inside and outside Tibet," he said in an email to AFP.

"The arguments of the judge, as we have seen them in the press at this moment, make little sense."

Unrest in Tibet erupted on March 14, 2008 after four days of peaceful protests against Chinese rule.

The government-in-exile says 203 Tibetans were killed and about 1,000 hurt in China's crackdown. Beijing insists that only one Tibetan was killed and in turn accused the "rioters" of killing 21 people.

In its lawsuit, the Tibetan Support Committee's lawsuit denounced "the new wave of oppression that began in Tibet on 10th March 2008, and just goes to prove that acts of genocide continue to be committed against the Tibetan people."

It also condemned " China's manipulation of the global war against terrorism in its attempt to justify and cover up crimes against humanity committed against the Tibetan people."

Other Chinese officials named in the suit were Minister for State Security Geng Huichang, Communist Party Secretary in Tibet Zhang Qingli, Politburo member Wang Lequan, Ethnic Affairs Commission head Li Dezhu, People's Liberation Army Commander in Lhasa General Tong Guishan and Zhang Guihua, political commissar in the Chengdu military command.

China's opponents accuse Beijing of systematic political, cultural and religious oppression in the remote and devoutly Buddhist Himalayan region.

Beijing has condemned the accusations of genocide in Tibet as slander and had accused Madrid of trying to interfere in its administration of the Himalayan region.

China has ruled Tibet since 1951, a year after sending troops in to "liberate" the region.