New Crackdown by China on Dalai Lama Photos
2013-07-22

Chinese authorities in Tibetan-populated counties in Qinghai province are placing new restrictions on the display of photos of the Dalai Lama, searching personal vehicles and beating and detaining those who resist the photos’ confiscation, Tibetan sources say.

The move follows reports in June of a relaxation on the ban of images of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in Qinghai and neighboring Sichuan. The reports were rejected by Chinese authorities, saying there will be no softening in the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s “struggle” against the Dalai Lama.

“On July 15, the police were stopping all vehicles in the Yulshul [in Chinese, Yushu] area and checking for photos of the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa,” another senior Tibetan religious figure, a local resident told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“Photos of Buddhist protector deities were also confiscated,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Those who tried to resist were severely beaten up,” he said.

“These days, all vehicles owned by common Tibetans are being stopped by the police and searched for photos of the Dalai Lama,” a U.S.-based Tibetan named Lobsang Sangye told RFA, citing contacts in the region.

“If they find any photos of the Dalai Lama, those are confiscated,” he said, adding, “In Chumarleb [Qumulai] county in Yulshul, two monks who attempted to resist were detained and taken away.”

Policy shift?

The move appears to reverse a policy shift reported in June, and described as “experimental,”  in which authorities are said to have told Tibetans in several parts of Qinghai that photos of the Dalai Lama could be openly displayed.

“From now on, photos of the Dalai Lama can be displayed, and no one is permitted to criticize him,” officials told Tibetan monks at a June 19 meeting held in Qinghai’s Tsigorthang (Xinghai) county, according to a Tibetan resident of the area.

A public notice titled “Don’t Listen to Rumors” has now been widely circulated by government departments in Qinghai’s Golog (Guoluo) prefecture, however, declaring there has been “no change” in China’s policy regarding the Dalai Lama.

“You must fight against the Dalai Lama’s efforts to split the Motherland and damage the work of the leadership of [the ruling] Chinese Communist Party and socialism,” says the notice, a copy of which was obtained by RFA’s Tibetan Service.

Chinese leaders regularly accuse the Dalai Lama of trying to “split” Tibet away from China, whose troops marched into the self-governing Himalayan region in 1950.

But the Dalai Lama denies seeking independence for Tibet, saying that he seeks only a “greater autonomy” that will preserve Tibetan religious and cultural freedoms for his homeland as a part of China.

Reported by Lumbum Tashi, Dorjee Tso, and Guru Choekyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Free Tibet media release: 17 July 2013
Immediate use

Tibetans tortured in detention following shooting at Dalai Lama birthday celebrations

Free Tibet has obtained further, confirmed information about the shootings in Tawu, eastern Tibet, on 6 July and events that followed. In at least one confirmed case electric shock was used on a 72 year-old man in detention. Many people were severely beaten during the incident with some, subsequently, requiring hospitalisation. A large protest was staged by the local community following the incident, which secured the release of many detainees. As previously reported (1), monk Sonam Tashi was shot in the head during the incident and hospitalised: no information has been released to friends or family about his current condition.

The shooting incident

As previously reported, members of the local community, including many monks and nuns, gathered on 6 July to celebrate the birthday of the Dalai Lama. New and reliable information has now emerged about the sequence of events leading to the shooting.

Around 3:00 pm, Tibetans started to go home, but armed security forces surrounded the area and prevented people from leaving. Security personnel stopped cars (picture available, 2) and, when people verbally protested, members of the security forces threw stones at the leading car.

Attendees at the event then protested that their gathering was legal and that the security forces were acting illegally when they damaged the vehicles. Security personnel then privately offered apologies and agreed to compensate the car owners for the damage but the Tibetans insisted that the compensation and the apology should be official.

An argument ensued and some members of the security forces began to beat some of the Tibetans, two severely. Other Tibetans responded by throwing stones. At some point during the altercation, security forces opened fire, leading to an unknown number of injuries. Free Tibet can confirm the names and some details of injuries for 14 of those injured during the incident and three injured following the incident (3, selected portrait and injury photos also available).

Detentions

At least twenty people were arrested, including some of those injured in the shooting. Free Tibet has confirmed the names of 14 detainees (4). Many detainees were severely beaten and 72-year-old Yama Tsering, who had sustained an arm injury during the incident, had four ribs broken and was also subjected to shocks from an electric prod (names of those confirmed injured, 3). There are unconfirmed reports that other detainees were also subjected to electric shocks. Lobsang Choedon, a nun, was beaten in detention and has been hospitalised as a result of serious injuries sustained.

Protest

Later on 6 July, approximately 3000 people gathered at Tawu Monastery to protest and appeal to the authorities to release the detainees. They threatened to remove their children from school and to stop cultivation of farm land. Local truck drivers also threatened to strike.

At around midnight, the detainees were released and authorities offered a total of 13,000 yuan (£1,400/ US$2,100 approx) to compensate for the injuries. The injured victims refused the offer of compensation on the grounds that it was inadequate and did not address the broader political problem.

Hospitalisation

Eleven people reported serious head, leg and arm injuries at the hospital, but others did not seek treatment for fear of being detained. Authorities have prevented family and friends from visiting those in hospital and their current conditions are unknown. Wanchen, a nun from Gedun Choeling nunnery who attempted to visit her friend in the hospital, was turned away. On her way back, Chinese security forces intervened and beat her, resulting in a broken arm.

In remarks made at a high level meeting at the US State Department last week, a member of China’s ruling State Council claimed that people in Tibet are “enjoying happier lives, and they’re enjoying unprecedented freedoms and human rights” (5).

Free Tibet Director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren said:

“This incident is confirmation that China under Xi Jinping will still use potentially lethal force against unarmed Tibetans defending their rights to follow their beliefs and will still use torture without hesitation against those in detention. The litany of gross human rights abuses arising from this single incident should be a wake-up call to world leaders that China’s PR on Tibet is as cynical as it is false. It is gravely concerning that more than a week after it was widely reported, Western governments have failed to make any public comment or condemnation of this severe and unjustifiable use of violence by the state.”

-ends-

For further information or comment, contact campaigns and media officer Alistair Currie:

E: alistair@freetibet.org
T: +44 (0)207 324 4605
M: +44 (0)780 165 4011

Notes for editors
(1)  Free Tibet press release, 9 july 2013: http://www.freetibet.org/news-media/pr/chinese-forces-open-fire-following-prayer-gathering-tibet
(2)  Picture available from Free Tibet
(3)  Names of people confirmed injured during the incident
1.    Tashi Sonam, monk, bullet wound in head (photo of serious head wound)
2.    Aga Tashi, layperson, multiple bullet wounds on back. Other injuries indicative of being beaten (photos of wounds)
3.    Sangpo, layperson, shot in leg (portrait and leg injury photos)
4.    Tsewang Choepel, monk in charge of monastery finances, bullet wound in leg (portrait and leg injuries photos)
5.    Tashi Gyaltsen, lay person, nature of injuries unconfirmed (portrait photo)
6.    Jangchup Dorjee, monk, nature of injuries unconfirmed (portrait photo)
7.    Lobsang Dorjee, monk, nature of injuries unconfirmed (portrait photo)
8.    Nyendak, layperson, bullet wound in leg (photo of wound)
9.    Gyamtso, disciplinarian at the monastery, nature of injuries unconfirmed
10.  Dolma, nun, nature of injuries unconfirmed
11.  Gyaltsen, two ribs broken
12.  Yama Tsering, 72, arm injury from incident; four broken ribs and electric shock during detention
13.  Dokapa Choedon, severely beaten, nature of injuries unconfirmed
14.  Karnga Ngawang, severely beaten, nature of injuries unconfirmed
Names of those confirmed injured following the incident:
15.  Lobsang Choeden, nun, severly beaten in detention, hospitalised (portrait photo)
16.  Wanchen, nun, beaten after visiting hospital
17.  Dickyi Gonpo, beaten, lost hearing (wound photo)

4. List available from Free Tibet
5. US State Department, 11 July 2013 http://www.state.gov/s/d/2013/211850.htm

Free Tibet is an international campaigning organisation that stands for the right of Tibetans to determine their own future. We campaign for an end to the Chinese occupation of Tibet and for the fundamental human rights of Tibetans to be respected.

Alistair Currie
Campaigns and Media Officer
T: +44 (0)20 7324 4605
Free Tibet
28 Charles Square
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N1 6HT
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Tibetans in critical condition after Chinese armed police shoot into crowd celebrating Dalai Lama’s birthday
Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy

Several known Tibetans are in critical condition and many more injured after Chinese armed police fired into a crowd of Tibetans gathered to celebrate the 78th birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on 6 July in Tawu (Ch: Daofu) County in Kardze (Ch: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

According to information received by TCHRD, at least nine Tibetans have sustained serious gunshot wounds and are believed to be in critical condition.  Many others, both monastic and lay Tibetans, whose exact numbers cannot be determined immediately, have been injured after paramilitary forces from People’s Armed Police (PAP) lobbed teargas shells and beat them. The injured are mostly monks from Nyatso Monastery, nuns from Geden Choeling Nunnery and a considerable number of lay Tibetans in Tawu County.

Gyen Tashi Sonam, a monk and teacher at Nyatso Monastery, who was shot in his head, is being treated along with others at a hospital in Dartsedo (Ch: Kangding) County. Graphic photographs show the bullet wound on Gyen Tashi Sonam’s head, a gaping hole on the front left part of his head. The condition of Ugyen Tashi, a layman, is said to be serious with hopes of his survival receding fast given his severe injuries.   According to latest information, Ugyen Tashi was shot at with at least eight bullets. He was first taken to County hospital where doctors, failing to handle the case, referred him to a provincial hospital in Chengdu where he is now being treated.

Gyamtso, a monk disciplinarian (Tib: Gekyo) at Nyatso Monastery was injured along with fellow monks, Jangchup Dorjee and Lobsang.  Jangchup Dorjee is a brother of Palden Choetso, a nun from Dakar Choeling Nunnery who died of self-immolation protest on 3 November 2011 in Tawu. Laymen injured by gunshot wounds included Tashi from Khoro nomadic camp, Nyendak from Dukya nomadic camp, Sangpo from Kyasor nomadic camp. Dolma is the only injured nun identified so far. She hails from Dunkye nomadic camp.
Chinese armed police arrive to surround the venue of birthday celebration.

Chinese armed police arrive to surround the venue of birthday celebration.

Local Tibetans in Tawu County including monks and nuns from Nyatso Monastery and Geden Choeling Nunnery had gathered on the morning of 6 July 2013 to celebrate the 78th birthday of the Dalai Lama. As Tibetans stood on the hillside – worshipped by Tibetans as the home of Machen Pomra, one of the most popular mountain gods in Kham – burning incense, hanging prayer flags and making offerings in front of the Dalai Lama’s portrait, vehicle loads of armed police arrived at the scene and attempted to cut short the birthday celebration. Armed police then surrounded the hill.

This provoked the crowd as Tibetans objected and questioned the armed police about the legality of their actions. “They asked why it was illegal to conduct religious rituals and under what national laws it was illegal to hold rituals,” a source told TCHRD quoting local eyewitnesses in Tawu. A former administrative staff (Tib: chanzoe) of Nyatso Monastery (name withheld) who participated in the celebration later recalled that the monks tried to negotiate with the armed police to avert bloody confrontation but were rebuffed.  “They [armed police] didn’t listen to us at all. They just started beating and shooting,” a source quoted the monk as saying.

The same source said armed police stoned the vehicle of Jangchup Dorjee as he attempted to drive up the hillside to reach the celebration venue. Armed police also used teargas shells to break up the crowd and beat the Tibetans. Sources say hundreds of Tibetans in Tawu attended the celebration although it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of those injured in armed police excesses.
Armed police stop cars driven by Tibetans to reach the celebration venue.

Armed police stop cars driven by Tibetans to reach the celebration venue.

Many Tibetans were detained the same day but were released after lay Tibetans and monks gathered at the courtyard of Nyatso Monastery and called for their immediate release. When armed police reached the courtyard full of local Tibetans at Nyatso Monastery, they expressed their apology and promised to bear responsibility if anyone died or sustained life-threatening injuries. But according to a source, local Tibetans believe that the armed police were just executing orders from above and that the apology must come from the prefectural government of Kardze.

So far Nyatso Monastery has borne all costs associated with the treatment of injured Tibetans, the source told TCHRD.

The situation has eased a little after staff and monks at Nyatso Monastery mediated with the security forces, who no longer surround the monastery as they did since 6 July.  But local Tibetans continue to face restrictions on their movement and the situation is said to be tense.

Last year on 6 July, armed police stopped local Tibetans from celebrating the Dalai Lama’s birthday on the same spot, a source with contacts in Tawu told TCHRD.

China vows to step up fight against Dalai Lama 
Yu Zhengsheng’s comments indicate China’s new government has not softened stance towards exiled Tibetan leader
Reuters in Beijing, Tuesday 9 July 2013 12.11 BST

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/09/china-dalai-lama-tibetan-leader

China’s leading official in charge of religious groups and ethnic minorities has vowed to step up the fight against exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, as a rights group reported police shootings of monks marking his birthday.

The comments by Yu Zhengsheng, number four in the ruling Communist party’s hierarchy, appeared aimed at thwarting speculation that China’s new leadership could take a softer line on the Dalai Lama.

Beijing considers the Dalai Lama, who fled China in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, to be a violent separatist. The Dalai Lama, who is based in India, says he is merely seeking greater autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.

Visiting a heavily Tibetan area of the western province of Gansu, Yu told local officials and religious leaders that the Dalai Lama’s separatist activities ran counter to the country’s interests and to Buddhist tradition.

“For the sake of national unity and the development of stability in Tibetan regions, we must take a clear-cut stand and deepen the struggle against the Dalai clique,” the official Xinhua news agency cited Yu as saying.

Buddhist leaders must be guided to oppose separatism and any efforts to damage the Communist party’s leadership, added Yu, who is head of a largely ceremonial advisory body to parliament that aims to co-opt religious and minority groups.

Yu repeated that ties with the Dalai Lama would improve if he openly recognised that Tibet had been a part of China since ancient times and abandoned his Tibetan independence activities, Xinhua reported.

“The Dalai Lama’s ‘middle way’ aimed at achieving so-called ‘high-degree autonomy’ in ‘Greater Tibet’ is completely opposite to China’s constitution and the country’s system of regional ethnic autonomy,” Yu added, according to Xinhua.

Speculation China would take a softer line towards the Dalai Lama had been fuelled in part by an essay written by a scholar from the Central Party School, who said that China could take some steps toward resuming talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives, which broke down in 2010.

Rights groups also say there has been some discussion about lifting restrictions on public displays of the Dalai Lama’s picture in his birthplace of Qinghai province.

Despite a heavy security presence, protests and resistance against Chinese rule in Tibetan areas have continued.

Police in a restive Tibetan part of Sichuan province opened fire on a group of monks and others who had gathered to mark the Dalai Lama’s birthday over the weekend, seriously injuring at least two, the US-based International Campaign for Tibet said.

While Chinese security forces often use heavy-handed tactics to stop protests in Tibetan regions, they rarely use guns.

Officials reached by telephone in Ganzi said they had no knowledge of the incident.

China’s foreign ministry said it was also unaware of the reports, but said the Dalai Lama was using the opportunity of his birthday to promote his separatist agenda.

At least 119 Tibetans have set themselves alight in protest against Chinese rule since 2009, mostly in heavily Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces rather than in what China terms the Tibet Autonomous Region. Most have died from their injuries.

Chamdo at Center of Beijing’s ‘Re-Education’ Campaign
2013-06-21

An unprecedented Chinese campaign to identify and monitor the political views of villagers in rural areas of Tibet has been especially heavy in the restive eastern prefecture of Chamdo, where residents are forced to fly the Chinese national flag and display photos of top Chinese leaders and are barred from visiting temples, sources say.

Of the more than 20,000 work-team members who have been assigned to the campaign across Tibet, over 7,000 have been deployed to monasteries and villages in the Chamdo (in Chinese, Changdu) area alone, a scene of frequent protests against Beijing’s rule, said Tibetan poet and blogger Woeser, citing information gathered from travelers to the region.

“These days if you travel in the rural Chamdo area, you won’t see traditional Tibetan prayer flags. Instead, you will see the Chinese red national flag with five stars,” the Beijing-based Woeser told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

All 500 monasteries in Chamdo have been forced to fly the flag, Woeser said, adding, “Even individual monks must raise the flag on their private homes.”

Political re-education

The campaign was launched by the ruling Chinese Communist Party leadership nearly two years ago under the guise of an exercise to improve rural living standards in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

Aside from intelligence-gathering, party cadres and other Chinese officials carry out widespread “political re-education” and establish “partisan” security units under the campaign, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report earlier this week..

“Sending cadres periodically to the grassroots is a common practice in China, especially in more leftist administrations and periods,” Columbia University Tibet scholar Robbie Barnett told RFA.

“But nothing has happened in China on this scale in terms of the cost of the operation, the percentage of local cadres involved, and the duration of the project,” Barnett said.

Tibetan families in Chamdo’s farming and nomadic communities must also display photographs of top Chinese leaders, with a ceremonial white scarf—a symbol of respect—draped around the photos, Woeser said.

“If they refuse, this will be treated as a ‘political error,’” she said.

Local resistance

Attempts by Chinese authorities to force Chamdo residents to fly the Chinese flag met with stiff resistance earlier this year.

On Feb. 10, Chinese police in Chamdo’s Dzogang (in Chinese, Zuogong) county rounded up and brutally beat a group of Tibetans following a protest at the start of the Lunar New Year, leaving two with broken bones and taking at least six into custody.

The protest in the county’s Meyul township came after authorities insisted that area residents fly the Chinese national flag from the roofs of their homes, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“But the Tibetans refused to fly the flags from their roofs,” the man said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Instead, they tore them down and stamped on them,” he said.

Permits for kerosene

In a bid to end the wave of self-immolation protests in which 120 Tibetans to date have set themselves ablaze to challenge Chinese rule, authorities now also require Chamdo residents to present special permits to buy kerosene, Woeser said.

“Government living assistance will be withdrawn from any community in which a resident self-immolates. And if any member of the monastic community self-immolates, their monastery will be shut down,” she said.

Government employees, students, and retirees in Chamdo are also banned from visiting temples or taking part in other religious activities, Woeser said.

“A statue of the [fourteenth-century] religious saint Thangthong Gyalpo that was standing in a school courtyard was even pulled down and thrown into a river because of its ‘irrelevance’ to the school’s architecture,” she said.

In one Chamdo village, a government team was required “to register ‘key personnel’ in the village and maintain ‘close vigilance over them,’” Human Rights Watch said in its June 18 report.

“The term ‘key personnel’ typically refers to people considered likely to cause political unrest,” HRW said.

HRW said that according to official reports, China’s present campaign of monitoring Tibetan areas is “unprecedented” in its scope, size, and cost.

Reported by RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English with additional reporting by Richard Finney.