City of Human Rights?

By Sean Fitzpatrick / January 23, 2017;

Photo: facebook

The Swiss government has drawn criticism after clamping down on protest during Chinese president Xi Jinping’s recent tour of the country and its United Nations (UN) offices at Geneva. The trip was the first of its kind since the Chinese administration’s visit to the country in 1999, which was marked by vigorous protest and the embarrassing near-egging of then president Jiang Zemin.

Photo: Jigme Ugen/facebook

Thirty-two Tibetan and Swiss activists were arrested in the city of Bern after overstaying a two hour government permit to protest there on Sunday January 15. A further 14 were detained following a demonstration outside the Swiss parliament building later that day. Around 800 people attended the Bern protests, which were organised by the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe (TYAE), alongside other Tibetan groups in the region.

Photo: Jigme Ugen/facebook

According to a statement from the Swiss police, the protesters were detained in order to “secure safety” and were later released without charge. Police also prevented a Tibetan man from setting himself alight during the demonstrations, before handing him over to doctors for treatment.

Voice of America Tibet (VOAT) reported further obstruction when the Swiss government contacted Tenzin Nyingpo, the president of Tibetan Community in Switzerland, asking him to withdraw a permit application for one of their planned demonstrations on the understanding that his group would be permitted to protest outside the UN offices during President Xi’s visit to the complex later that week. However, VOAT reports that once the application had been withdrawn, the government once again contacted Nyingpo, instructing him that the demonstration planned to take place outside the UN offices would no longer be permitted to coincide with the president’s tour.

Five Tibetan activists were arrested for protesting during the president’s UN visit in defiance of Swiss bureaucracy. Four of those detained were members of TYAE who were taken by police after standing outside the offices with banners reading “Arrest Xitler” and “Free Tibet” during Xi’s tour of the facility. “This has just happened in Geneva, in the city of human rights, in the city of freedom, and this is very shameful,” said Migmar Dhakyel, a spokeswoman for the group.

Dorjee Dhakyel, a Tibetan resident of Zurich, the nation’s capital, was also disappointed with the behaviour of the Swiss government. “We have always been peaceful in Switzerland”, she said, “They say that we have human rights but today I have seen that they are submitting to the Chinese.”

News of the protests and arrests hit the international media. swissinfo.ch, the news and information platform in ten languages produced by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, said, “With protestors banned and accredited media barred from covering his final speech, Swiss media were left wondering if Switzerland kowtowed to China”.

China signed a free trade agreement with Switzerland in 2014, and is a significant trading partner to many of Switzerland’s largest corporations. The state visit was planned to coincide with China’s first attendance of the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos, an international conference of business and political leaders who meet to discuss globalisation and the pressing matters of the period.