Dharamshala — Central Tibetan Administration held a public felicitation event to honour the members of a high-level bipartisan delegation from the US Congress on Wednesday. Rep. Gregory Meeks said during the event, "We all are here to call on the government of Beijing to immediately cease its countless violations of human rights of Tibetans. It’s time for Beijing to resume dialogue without preconditions with His Holiness and his representative in order to reach a negotiated resolution that leads to meaningful Autonomy for the Tibetan people."
The bipartisan US Congressional delegation meets with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at his residence in Dharamshala on June 19, 2024 and Representative Michael McCaul presents His Holiness with a framed copy of <<The Resolve Tibet Act >> which was recently passed by the House of Representative and waiting for President Biden to sign it into law.
The bipartisan Congressional delegation, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, the delegation includes Speaker Emerita of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee Jim McGovern (D-MA), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Indo-Pacific Ami Bera (D-CA), and Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) and Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY). They meets with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at his residence in Dharamshala on June 19, 2024.
After meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, then the delegation attended a public felicitation (Central Tibetan Administration honors high level US Congressional Delegation) organised by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in the Tibetan Main Temple, Mcleod Ganj, Dharamshala, HP, India, on June 19, 2024.
Representative Gregory Meeks said, "I am here as the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs committee. I am here with a bipartisan delegation to let you all know that in the U.S. Congress, we are together, and we are paying attention, and our support for the Tibetan people is unwavering."
"Every single one of us is deeply concerned about Beijing’s growing campaign of repression against Tibetans in the PRC. We know that Beijing is separating the Tibetan Children, children that are before us, from their families through its state-run boarding school. We know that Beijing is forcibly relocating entire communities under the guise of economic development. We also know targeting and imprisoning hundreds of Tibetan Activists, writers, artists, Teachers, and clergy for simply exercising their fundamental freedoms. And we know that it is trying to cooperate and control Tibetan Buddhism, even as it restricts freedom of religion across the Tibetan autonomous region and other Tibetan areas," Rep. Meeks said
"We all are here to call on the government of Beijing to immediately stop its countless abuses of Tibetan human rights. It’s time for Beijing to re-engage and dialogue without preconditions with His Holiness and His Representative to reach a negotiated resolution that leads to meaningful Autonomy for the Tibetan people. That’s why I am very proud to have worked with Representative McGovern, Chairman McCaul, and the State Department to pass the resolution that we passed promoting a resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, which passed both chambers of Congress last week in a bipartisan manner,” the Representative said.
Referring to his African-American origins and his struggle to be an African in the United States, he said during ceremony on June 19, 2024, “19 June was a historic day, because on June 19, 1865, it was the day slavery ended in the United States. I know that you will persevere to ensure a better future for your children and your children's children that you will persevere to be able to speak your own language and pass it on. I have been privileged to see the beautiful customs and I look forward to the day when we can all say that Tibetans are at last free to return to their homeland, Tibet, free to practise their own culture, free to be who they are and free to live their lives in dignity and peace, freedom and justice for all the Tibetan people and for all the peoples of the world".
