On Saturday, April 20, the Foreign Minister of China will come to Prague for a 3-day official visit of the Czech Republic. He is scheduled to meet the Czech President, the Czech Foreign Minister and several other Ministers.

On this occasion, activists of the Transnational Radical Party and Movement for Civic Solidarity and Tolerance are organizing a demonstration in front of the Czech Foreign Ministry on Saturday, April the 20th at 4 p.m.. The following Declaration, signed by a number of the representatives of NGOs, will be sent to the President and Ministers and published in the media.

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DECLARATION ON THE VISIT OF THE FOREIGN MINISTER OF CHINA

At the occasion of the three-day official visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Tchien Tchi-Tchen in the Czech Republic, from Saturday, April 20, till Monday, April 22, 1996, we consider it necessary to remind of the following facts:

1. The Chinese occupation of independent Tibet since 1949 has claimed over 1.2 million victims, the destruction of over 6000 monastries and unprecedented devastation of the environment. Transfers of Chinese population into Tibet are ever more intensive, total disappearance of the Tibetan people is imminent. Civil and religious freedoms are systematically suppressed. China is permanently refusing to negotiate with Tibetan representatives, led by the Dalai Lama, about the solution of the situation in Tibet.

2. The Chinese government is trying to inhibit democratic development in Tchai-Wan by systematic millitary intimidation, culminating in March 1996 before Presidential elections on this island.

3. According to Amnesty International, thousands of political prisoners are being jailed in China and Tibet. Hundreds of thousands of people are arbitrarily detained without being accused or tried. Leaders of the student movement, which was bloodily suppressed on Tien-an-Men Square in 1989, as well as members of religious and ethnic groups, are still being persecuted.

4. The system of "lao-gai" (labor camps) is still in existence in China. People are being detained in these camps without being accused or tried. Many of the cheap products which flood European markets are being produced there.

5. Every year thousands of death penalties are given in China - even for crimes against property. In 1995 Amnesty International recorded 3200 death sentences and 2100 executions. Many sentences are carried out on mass rallies as part of campaigns against crime.

6. In December 1995, Wei Jingsheng, the best known human-rights defender in China, who is repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was sentenced again for 14 years in jail, having already spent 15 years behind the bars of Chinese prisons.

7. In May 1995, Gendun Choekyi Nyima, a six-year-old boy identified by the Dalai Lama as the re-incarnation of Panchen Lama (the second highest religious representative of Tibetan Buddhism), was abducted together with his family. They are being detained in an unknown place. Requests for his release from around the world are being ignored.

We appeal urgently to the President of the Czech Republic, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and other officials who will negotiate with the Chinese delegation, to express together with us their concern about the aforementioned facts, and to request improvement.

If the visit fails to address more than economic relations, it will contribute merely to the legitimacy of politically motivated violence. If, however, the Czech Republic proves through its approach that respect for human rights will not be sacrificed to short-term economic interests, the meeting may contribute to the democratic future of the world.

Therefore we call a

DEMONSTRATION

for Saturday, April 20, 1996, 4 p.m.

in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic

for a protest against violation of human rights in China and Tibet.

Signed by:

Jan WUNSCH - Centre for the Support of Local Initiatives,

Vaclav TROJAN - Helsinki Citizens Assembly,

Jana CERVENKOVA - Czech Centre of International PENCLUB,

Michal STINGL - Children of the Earth

Dan VONDROUS - Duha Movement

Jan JARAB, Stanislav PENC - Movement for Civic Solidarity and Tolerance,

Simon PANEK - Human in Troubles Foundation,

Jan FALTUS - Ladronka Foundation,

Jan SKOUMAL - International Society for Human Rights,

Vera ROUBALOVA - Tolerance Foundation

Lenka CABALOVA - S.O.S. Tibet

Eva VAVROUSKOVA - Society for Sustainable Life

Olga CECHUROVA - Transnational Radical Party