European Union Nations Raised the Issue of the Persecution of Falun Gong many times in the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue

In early March, the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a conference to inform Irish non-governmental organisations of the result of its human rights dialogue with China. “The EU-China Human Right Dialogue” in the first half of 2004 was held for two days at the end of February in Dublin, Ireland, the capital of the incumbent EU President’s home country. The conference was presided over by Mr. John Bigger, head of the Human Rights Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Amnesty International Ireland, The Frontline Human Right Defense, the Tibetan Human Rights Organisation and the Irish Falun Gong Association were invited to the conference.

John Bigger reported China’s human rights issues raised in the dialogue and the responses by the Chinese side. The Irish government brought up a series of China’s human right issues in the dialogue, including the persecution of Falun Gong, Tibetan issues, capital punishment, etc. Mr. Bigger said that when mentioning various human right issues such as freedom of speech and freedom of belief, the Irish government repeatedly touched on the matter concerning the persecution of Falun Gong. The individual cases pertaining to the victims of the persecution raised include Liu Feng and Yang Fang, the Chinese students who used to study in Ireland. Liu Feng and Fang returned to China on vacation at the end of 1999, but were arrested and their passports were confiscated because they practise Falun Gong. They have not been allowed to return to Ireland to continue their studies so far. As to China’s responses to the issues regarding Falun Gong, Mr. Bigger didn’t elaborate on it. Mr. Bigger’s comment on the result of this dialogue was: “achieve limited results in limited areas.”

One thing strange to those from non-governmental organisations was that “the EU-China Human Right Dialogue” turned out to be proposed by the Chinese side. According to international custom, a dialogue is supposed to address both sides’ issues, but this dialogue only discussed China’s human right situation. When looking at it from the Chinese perspective, it was an unfair dialogue. To the condemnation of China’s human rights situation by international society including the U.S., the Chinese Government has always maintained a denying position. However, on the contrary, it proposed to proceed with an unfair dialogue this time. It will inevitably make people feel very strange. In his comment, the representative of the Irish Falun Gong Association, Zhao Ming, who attended the dialogue said: “This cooperative human rights dialogue will make sense only after China has the sincerity to improve its human rights. Nonetheless, the cruel persecution participated and inflicted by all levels of the entire Chinese government system on Falun Gong has lasted more than four years. The facts showed that the Chinese government doesn’t have any sincerity to improve its human rights.” Another fact is that since the EU started to have human rights dialogues with China, the governments of the EU countries have basically ceased to openly condemn China’s human rights situation. At present, more and more human rights organisations have perceived the limitation of this kind of human right dialogue, and urged the EU to improve its human rights dialogue with China.

Prior to this dialogue, FIDH and HRIC wrote an open letter to the EU, along with a twenty-six-page evaluation report on the “EU-China Human Rights Dialogue.” In the letter, these two human rights organisations stated “The human rights dialogue can and must be more effective and more transparent, and it should be related to China’s human rights situation. We believe that these indicators are an effective means for evaluation. The application of these indicators is of help to create a more ‘result-oriented’ dialogue, and generate ‘noticeable improvements.’”

Background Information

“The EU-China Human Rights Dialogue” began in January 1996, when it was held by the home country of the EU President on behalf of the EU, aiming to help China improve its human rights situation. In 1997, the human rights dialogue was suspended because ten EU countries came up with a resolution to condemn China’s human rights situation, but it resumed at the end of that year. Since then on, it is held every six month in China or the EU alternatively. This human rights dialogue has two aspects. One is between governments and the other between human rights scholars. This dialogue is not attended by Foreign Ministers or Vice Foreign Ministers, so usually its content is not open to the media.