By Mercury Correspondent
After meeting Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon called on South Africa to take up the cause of human rights abuses suffered by Tibetans.
Leon led a group of members of parliament that last week met the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, despite the objections of the Chinese embassy in Pretoria.
Leon said the Dalai Lama had “urged us to highlight and internationalise he plight of the six million citizens of Tibet in China and the 140 000 Tibetans living in exile, mostly in India, whom he describes as victims of a profound abuse of human rights and ‘cultural genocide’ “.
Leon said the Dalai Lama had emphasised that neither he nor the Tibetan government-in-exile were seeking independence from China, but that he wanted a compromise which would accommodate the aspirations of Tibetans within the Chinese constitution.
The DA would highlight the Tibetan situation in parliament, Leon said. – Foreign Correspondent
