Current Appeals

The high-ranking Tibetan Monk Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche is imprisoned since April 7th 2002. Years before his imprisonment he stayed in India for a longer time, where he was granted an audience by the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama recognised him as Tulku (reincarnated Lama) of a prominent Lama from Lithang. Chinese authorities were already attentive in 1998 and 2000 because of his commitment to revitalise Tibetan culture. The Chinese government justifies his arrest with the alleged involvement in a bomb attack on the central square of Sichuan's province capital. It is assumed that he was massively tortured during the eight months between his arrest and the beginning of his trial. The verdict is a fatal judicial error which can also be proven by a tape of Tenzin Deleg's protest of innocence which was smuggled out of his prison. The death sentence of 2002 was converted into a life long prison term. Currently Tenzin Deleg is being detained in the maximum-security prison Chuandong in the district of Dazu of the Province Sichuan, without any contact to the outside world.

According to the United Nations Convention against Torture, stoning is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Stoning is in opposition to articles 3 and 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of articles 6 and 7 of the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantee the right to life and prohibit torture and inhuman treatment. Furthermore stoning because of adultery is against the international principle of commensurability.

Approximately 2,000 North-Korean refugees are expelled from China every month; several 10,000 are still living secretly in China. On the basis of a 1968 concluded agreement with Pyongyang North-Koreans are deported by the Chinese authorities and face severe punishments in their home country. South Korea is prepared to take the refugees in.

Severe discrimination and persecution of Protestants, the ethnic minorities, is everyday life in Vietnam. Church service and private worship assemblies are prohibited. Montagnards , a collective term for all mountain peoples in Vietnam , have been forced to renounce from the Christian religion. Regular interrogation, arbitrary detention and the strong presence of special police units, create an atmosphere of fear and terror in the mountain villages. While interrogation, victims have been forced to stand on one leg for a long time and were abused respectively tortured. Hundreds of Montagnards have been convicted to prison terms up to 13 years for participating in peaceful protests and religious assemblies.