Prague- The Czech Foreign Ministry has officially condemned the violence in Tibet and the junior ruling Greens (SZ) leadership today protested against it in a letter to the Chinese ambassador to Prague, saying that “the Tibetans’ protests express their natural will to freedom.”
Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg condemned in his statement the violence committed “on peaceful and unarmed demonstrators who only want to express their opinion freely.”
“A solution by force will only further worsen the situation, and this is why we call for utmost restraint,” Schwarzenberg wrote in a statement on Saturday evening.
“We condemn the violence committed on demonstrators who came to express their opinion, and we demand that it [violence] immediately cease. We demand that the preventively detained persons be released and not be exposed to undignified treatment and torture,” the Greens write in their letter to the Chinese ambassador.
They also call on the Chinese government to enable the independent media to have free access to unbiased information about the events in Tibet.
The Foreign Ministry’s communique also says the Czech Republic and the Czech public traditionally put a great emphasis on the protection of human rights, fundamental freedoms and the protection of cultural and religious heritage all over the world, including in Tibet.
“Those are our universal values to which no one can resign either in Prague or in Lhasa, and definitely not in the year when the Olympic Games will take place in Beijing,” Schwarzenberg wrote.
He also demanded that information on the events in Tibet be freely released and representatives of independent media be allowed to enter the area.
The spokesman for the Tibetan exile government announced today that Friday’s unrest in Lhasa claimed 80 lives and another 72 people were allegedly injured. The official Chinese sources speak about 10 victims.
