Letter: Victims' representatives excluded from human rights forum
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: The UN human rights jamboree in Vienna serves only to highlight the differences between groups of states, as Raymond Whitaker shows ('Asians challenge Western ideals', 14 June).
If, however, the Asian states' declaration that 'rights should be seen in the context of a nation's history' is accepted, the oppression of subject peoples who were formerly self- governing should be put at the top of the agenda. As the former UN Rapporteur Hector Gros Espiell has said, the right of self-determination is an essential precondition for the existence of all other human rights and freedoms.
This makes it all the more intolerable that the representatives of the Kashmiris, Tibetans and Sikhs, who were originally invited to the conference, have now been told not to come.
The official who wrote withdrawing the invitations said there had been an 'administrative oversight', but the real reason must have been that pressure was brought to bear on the organisers by the Indians and Chinese.
What is the point of a human rights conference where the representatives of the victims are systematically excluded?
It would be more useful if, instead of paying the fares and hotel bills of a delegation from the UK - no doubt a not inconsiderable sum, Vienna prices being what they are - we donated an equivalent sum to the human rights groups working for the liberation of peoples from the empires of China, India and Indonesia.
Yours faithfully,
ERIC AVEBURY
House of Lords
London, SW1
14 June
The writer is Chairman of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments