BAF Europe press release
A two member team from Bhutanese Advocacy Forum Europe (BAF) has met Mrs. Jean Lambert, Chairperson of The European Parliament’s delegation for relations with South Asia at her office in European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium today at 1.30pm. 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 on the following issues apart from the issue of Bhutanese refugee:-
1.Systematic annihilation of culture (by changing the age old names of southern villages and towns into imported names from elsewhere), language/dialects and religion of southern and eastern Bhutanese and other minorities by perpetuating the policy of Driglam Namzha and through state sponsoring of Drukpa Kazyugpa Buddhism.
2.80,000 Lhosampas those relatives of refugees were deprived of their right to vote in the last general election.
3.Lhosampas are forbidden to be employed in Defense, External affairs, civil aviation, Home Ministry and other government institutions and those related to refugees are even not allowed in any government employment.
4.Continued incarceration of political prisoners from the south (since 1990) and the east (since 1997) in Rabuna and other prisons. Most noted of them is Mr. Nandalal Katwal (former General Secretary of exile based Bhutan Gurkha National Liberation Front (BGNLF), Mrs. Dechen Wangmo (former national coordinator of UN funded Global Youth Service Day and Youth Employment Summit (YES), Mr. Tenzin G. Zangpo, General Secretary of the Druk National Congress (Democratic) and Mr. Shanti Ram Acharya, Journalist with exile based Bhutan Reporter.
5.Persecution of Christians all over Bhutan (including long term imprisonment and short term detention)
6.Denial of access to Media to the governmental information and the gagging of media by imposition of fines (when governmental flaws are reported)
Furthermore 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 the above 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 Mrs. 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 for the first time instead of calling them people in the camps, which he usually prefers to call the Bhutanese refugees in Nepal”. 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.
Mrs. Lambert further said “the issue of name changing of the villages and towns in south Bhutan is a violation of cultural rights of the southern Bhutanese and should not be done”, and said that she will urgently ask her delegations in New Delhi to take up this issue with Bhutan. She also confided the BAF team that her representatives in New Delhi will also be asked to enquire about the political prisoners in Bhutan.
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 prepared by exile Journalist Mr. Indra Adhikari from Australia.
In another occasion the same BAF team screened the documentary Politics of Bhutan by Mr. Jogen Gazmere (a Bhutanese former AI prisoner of conscience) followed by a power point presentation on the genesis of Bhutanese refugee crisis at South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF) (a lobby group of south Asia at the European parliament based in Brussels) office in Brussels. The presentation was followed by question and answer session where various questions and queries related to Bhutanese refugee crisis were raised by the audience. Answering the queries BAF delegates appealed SADF to actively pursue the cases of Bhutanese refugee issues and other related to democracy and human rights in Bhutan.
Mr. 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 Mr. Paulo also himself former member of European parliament from Portugal.
With Kind Regards,
Mr. Hem Rizal
BAF-Europe
The Netherlands.