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Dear Secretary-General, Dear High Commissioner, Dear Presidium,
We are deeply concerned by information coming from our contacts in Tibet and eyewitness evidence reported by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy and other NGO's with close contacts in Tibet.
Protests in Tibet have spread from last week in Lhasa into many other cities and China's provinces where Tibetan people live.
Many Tibetans now face a deep fear of expressing their ideas, hundreds of people have been arrested and missing. Chinese police organize house-by-house visits to search protest organizers' homes, people are forced to denunciate protesters. Peaceful protest marches are dispersed by Chinese soldiers, "problematic" monasteries are surrounded by dozens of heavy military vehicles with hundreds of troops.
Some internet pages are blocked inside China, while mobile networks have been partially shut down. This constitutes a violation of the freedom of expression, and is a source of concern as to atrocities likely to be happening in Tibet.
We express our deep compassion with the families whose members have been killed in demonstrations. We sympathize with all prisoners of conscience and the arbitrarily arrested, who peacefully expressed their protest against China's oppression. We are especially concerned as these arrests are taking place in a country where "torture is widespread", according to the UN Special Rapporteur's latest report.
Because of the critical situation in Tibet we urge you to immediately send an independent fact-finding mission of the United Nations to examine the current situation in Tibet.
It is essential for the world's state of human rights to find out what has really happened and is still happening in Tibet these days.
Czech civic associations:
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04.04.2008
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