U.N. rights body faces calls to address Tibet

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations' top human rights body is facing calls to break its silence over China's crackdown in Tibet and send investigators to the Himalayan region Beijing has closed off to foreigners and journalists.

Since its creation in July 2006, the U.N. Human Rights Council has examined reported abuse by Israel in the Palestinian territories, by Sudan in the Darfur region, and by Myanmar whose military rulers beat back monk-led demonstrations last year.

But the 47-member-state body, whose current roster includes China, India, Britain, France and Russia, has so far skirted the question of Tibet during a four-week session in Geneva that ends next week.

"We are encouraging governments to take up the issue," said Peter Splinter of Amnesty International, which wants U.N. rights experts to be deployed to Tibet to assess conditions there.

"The world really doesn't know what is going on," he told Reuters on Thursday.

Exiled Tibetan groups have estimated nearly 100 people died when Chinese security forces moved to quell rioting in Tibet's capital Lhasa, while Beijing says at least 16 died.

The crackdown has sparked international criticism and clouded preparations for this summer's Beijing Olympics which China wants to use to celebrate its emergence as a world power.

In Geneva, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development and 64 other Asian activist groups wrote to Human Rights Council members urging them "to address the ongoing gross human rights violations against Tibetans with regards to their right to life, freedom of expression and assembly, among others".

"It is imperative that the Human Rights Council as the principal human rights organ of the United Nations take urgent measures by convening a special session to address the current situation in China," they said.

Several countries, including European Union member states, are expected to refer to Tibet in speeches to the Human Rights Council early next week, though diplomats are unlikely to apply too much direct pressure on Beijing.

China holds a permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council and wields enormous economic power as an exporter of low-cost manufactured goods and holder of vast foreign currency reserves.

The Human Rights Council was created as a successor to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, which was discredited for failing to overcome political resistance to examining abuses, including China's crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

The United States, which declined to seek a seat on the Council, has been particularly vocal in criticizing the new body's tendency to focus almost exclusively on violations by Israel.

(Editing by Giles Elgood)