German Foreign Minister’s Speech at the UN Commission on Human Rights Calls on China to Cease the Persecution of Falun Gong

On 20th March 2002, Mr Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, delivered a speech in a packed hall at the 58th United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. The following is an excerpt of his widely applauded speech which called on China to end its persecution of Falun Gong:

“Despite the release of political prisoners and the increased readiness to co-operate with the international human rights mechanisms, we still take a very critical view of the human rights situation in China.

The Federal Government therefore calls once again for China
- to end the persecution of Christian churches and other religious communities

- to halt the oppression of ethnic minorities and to grant the Tibetans and Uighars in particular substantial autonomy rights

- to cease persecuting Falun Gong

- to declare a moratorium on the enforcement of the death penalty with a view to its ultimate abolition, and

- soon ratify the international covenant on civil and political rights and implement the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights in its entirety.”