Detained Tibetan Monk Had Photo Taken With Banned National Flag
2016-05-18
A young Tibetan monk taken into custody this week by authorities in southwestern China’s Sichuan province had been photographed with a banned Tibetan national flag, leading to his investigation and eventual detention by police, sources in exile said.
Jampa Gelek, believed to be about 23 years old, was seized by police at about 8:30 p.m. on May 16 in Tawu (in Chinese, Daofu) county in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, one source told RFA’s Tibetan Service in an earlier report.
A first-year student at the Tawu Institute of Buddhist Studies, Gelek was detained while walking in prayer around a Buddhist stupa near his monastery, the source said.
Though no explanation for his detention was immediately available, exile sources with contacts in Tawu now say that Gelek had been photographed with a Tibetan national flag and may have expressed a wish to immolate himself in protest against Beijing’s rule in Tibetan areas.
“Gelek was detained after authorities obtained a photo he had taken in his room with a Tibetan flag hanging in the background,” Sonam, a Tibetan living in Switzerland, told RFA.
“Another reason may have been that he had declared his intention to stage a self-immolation protest last year, though family members later stopped him from doing so,” Sonam said.
Slogan found on wall
Separately, a second Tibetan source with contacts in Tawu confirmed Sonam’s account of Gelek’s detention, adding that police on searching Gelek’s room had found a Free Tibet slogan written in English on a wall.
“After Gelek was taken away at around 8:30 at night on May 16, another group of security officials raided his room again at around 11:00 p.m.,” the source, a monk living in South India named Yama Tsering said.
“That very night, Gelek was moved to Dartsedo [Kangding] county and is now being held in a detention center,” Tsering said.
Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule and calling for the return of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.
A total of 145 Tibetans living in China have now set themselves ablaze in self-immolations since the wave of fiery protests began in 2009, with most protests featuring calls for Tibetan freedom and the Dalai Lama’s return from India, where he has lived since escaping Tibet during a failed national uprising in 1959.
Reported by Lhuboom and Sonam Wangdu for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Cycle rally in India highlights continued detention of Panchen Lama
May 23, 2016
Times of India, May 20, 2016 – To highlight the “pitiable condition of Tibetans under the Chinese rule” and to spread awareness about the 11th Panchen Lama – Gedhun Choekyi Nyima – the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, as many as 47 cyclists reached Meerut on Friday afternoon.
The bicycle rally named ‘Cycle Rally for Panchen Lama’ has been organized by the Tibetan Youth Congress, the largest Tibetan NGO in exile.
Several youngsters – in the age group of 17-28 – had started their cycling journey from Dehradun on Tuesday and reached here on Friday. The group plans to reach New Delhi on May 23, the day the ’17-Point Agreement’ was signed between Tibet and China.
Tenzin Tsukte, president, Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, said, “Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was just six years old when he was recognized as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, one of the most important religious leaders of Tibet. Soon after, Chinese authorities took him and his family into custody. For more than twenty years, people and human rights entities across the world have urged the Chinese government to release Panchen Lama but to no avail.”
To spread awareness about Panchen Lama, the Tibetan Youth Congress organized the cycle rally on May 17, the day Panchen Lama was arrested and the same will conclude in Delhi on May 23, the day the agreement was signed between Tibet and China.
“So far, we’ve halted at Haridwar, Roorkee and Mansoorpur. We will reach Delhi on May 23 and assemble in front of Jantar Mantar where we will submit a memorandum of our demands to the UN,” said Tsukte.
Tibetans from Dekyiling in Dehradun, Poanta Sahib, Puruwalla, Raipur, Rajpur, Herbertpur, Nainital, Mussoorie, Delhi, Dharamsala and Bir Tibetan Settlements are taking part in the rally.

New railway into Tibet poses both technological and political challenge
May 23, 2016
The Economist, May 21, 2016 – “A colossal roller-coaster” is how a senior engineer described it. He was talking about the railway that China plans to build from the lowlands of the south-west, across some of the world’s most forbidding terrain, into Tibet. Of all the country’s railway-building feats in recent years, this will be the most remarkable: a 1,600-kilometre (1,000-mile) track that will pass through snow-capped mountains in a region racked by earthquakes, with nearly half of it running through tunnels or over bridges. It will also be dogged all the way by controversy.
Chinese officials have dreamed of such a railway line for a century. In 1912, shortly after he took over as China’s first president, Sun Yat-sen called for a trans-Tibetan line, not least to help prevent Tibet from falling under the sway of Britain (which had already invaded Tibet from India a decade earlier). Mao Zedong revived the idea in the 1950s. In the years since, many exploratory surveys have been carried out.
But it is only after building the world’s second-longest railway network—including, in the past few years, by far the biggest high-speed one—that China’s government has felt ready to take on the challenge. It had a warm-up with the construction of the first railway into Tibet, which opened in 2006. That line, connecting Lhasa with Golmud in Qinghai province to the north (and extended two years ago from Lhasa to Tibet’s second city, Shigatse), was proclaimed to be a huge accomplishment. It included the highest-altitude stretch in the world, parts of it across permafrost. It required ingenious heat-regulating technology to keep the track from buckling
China further honed its skills with the opening of a high-speed line across the Tibetan plateau in 2014—though in Qinghai province, rather than in Tibet proper. But neither track had anything like the natural barriers that the Sichuan-Tibet line will face. It will be just under half as long again as the existing line to Tibet, but will take three times longer to build. The second line’s estimated cost of 105 billion yuan ($16 billion) is several times more than the first one. Lhasa is about 3,200 metres (10,500 feet) higher than Chengdu, yet by the time the track goes up and down on the way there—crossing 14 mountains, two of them higher than Mont Blanc, western Europe’s highest mountain—the cumulative ascent will be 14,000 metres. The existing road from Chengdu to Lhasa that follows the proposed route into Tibet is a narrow highway notable for the wreckage of lorries that have careered off it. Some Chinese drivers regard the navigation of Highway 318 as the ultimate proof of their vehicles’, and their own, endurance.
Work on easier stretches of the railway line, closest to Lhasa and Chengdu respectively, began in 2014. Now the government appears to be getting ready for the tougher parts. A national three-year “plan of action”, adopted in March for major transport-infrastructure projects, mentions the most difficult stretch: a 1,000km link between Kangding in Sichuan and the Tibetan prefecture of Linzhi (Nyingchi in Tibetan). The plan says this should be “pushed forward” by 2018. It will involve 16 bridges to carry the track over the Yarlung Tsangpo river, known downstream as the Brahmaputra. Dai Bin of Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu says the Chengdu-Lhasa line could be finished by around 2030.
In Litang, a town high up in Sichuan on that difficult stretch, a Tibetan monk speaks approvingly of the project, which will bring more tourists to the remote community and its 16th-century monastery (rebuilt since the Chinese air force bombed it in 1956 to crush an uprising). But the impact on Tibet of the Golmud-Lhasa line still reverberates. It fuelled a tourism boom in Lhasa that attracted waves of ethnic Han Chinese from other parts of China to work in industries such as catering and transport. The resentment it created among Tibetans, who felt excluded from the new jobs, was a big cause of rioting in Lhasa in 2008 that ignited protests across the plateau. The new line will cut through some of the most restive areas. Since 2011 more than 110 Tibetans are reported to have killed themselves by setting themselves on fire in protest at China’s crackdown after the unrest. Some of the self-immolations have happened in Tibetan-inhabited parts of Sichuan, including near Litang.
With spectacular views, the new line is sure to be a big draw. It is also sure to attract many migrant workers from Sichuan, a province of 80m people, to cash in on Tibet’s tourism. The journey time from Chengdu to Lhasa is a gruelling three days by road, or more than 40 hours by train through Qinghai. The new line will reduce it to a mere 15 hours.
Officials see other benefits. The route will cross a region rich in natural resources, from timber to copper. It will also, to India’s consternation, pass close to the contested border between the two countries. (China says India occupies “south Tibet”, and launched a brief invasion of India there in 1962.) A Chinese government website, China Tibet News, said in 2014 that building the Sichuan-Tibet railway had become “extremely urgent”, not just for developing Tibet but also to meet “the needs of national-defence-building”.
Communist party officials in Tibet hope that the new line will be just the start of a railway-building spree in the once-isolated region. On May 16th Tibet Daily, the government mouthpiece in Tibet, said that work would start in the coming five years on around 2,000km of track. It would include a line from Shigatse to Yadong (or Dromo), near the border with India and Bhutan, and another one to Jilong (or Gyirong), near the border with Nepal. China’s railway chief talks of “the extreme importance of railway-building for Tibet’s development and stability”. The region’s recent history offers scant evidenc

Tibetan Monk and Writer Sentenced to Prison Term
2016-05-09
Authorities in southwestern China’s Sichuan province have sentenced a Tibetan monk and writer to seven and a half years in prison on unspecified charges, but sources told RFA’s Tibetan service that he was sentenced for “sharing government secrets and attempting to divide the nation.”
Jo Lobsang Jamyang, 28, also known by his pen name Lomig, was sentenced in Lunggu (in Chinese Wenchuan) county court in the Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture after a closed trial from which his family and lawyer were barred, Kanyak Tsering, a Tibetan living in India, told RFA’s Tibetan service.
“Jamyang was detained on April 17, 2015 in Lunggu county and kept in the local detention center for one year and six months,” a source living in the region told RFA. “During that period he was severely tortured.”
Jamyang’s family was allowed a half-hour visit after the sentencing on May 9, the source said.
“Only today, the authorities allowed the family members to see him for about 30 minutes,” the source told RFA. “During that meeting Jo Lobsang Jamyang shared with family members how the authorities had accused him of sharing government secrets with others and engaging in nation-splitting activities.”
Jamyang is known for his poems and social commentary and he has often advocated for freedom of expression for writers in Tibet, Tsering said, adding that a collection of his poems has been published as “The Swirling Yellow Mist.”
Jamyang joined Ngaba’s Kirti monastery at a young age. He was studying in the monastery’s Prajnaparamita class and also took part-time courses in non-religious studies at Larung Gar monastery in Serthar (Seda) county and the Northwest University for Nationalities in Lanzhou, Tsering told RFA.
Kirti monastery has been the scene of repeated self-immolations and other protests by monks, former monks, and nuns opposed to Chinese rule in Tibetan areas.
Authorities raided the institution in 2011, taking away hundreds of monks and sending them for “political re-education” while local Tibetans who sought to protect the monks were beaten and detained, sources said.
Reported by Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

China refuses entry to chair of German human rights committee
May 16, 2016
Agence France Presse, May 11, 2016 – Beijing has refused entrey to the German lawmaker who chairs the parliament’s Human Rights Committee. The decision comes after her reportedly criticized rights violations in Tibet.
Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the Bundestag Michael Brand said on Wednesday that the Chinese ambassador had tried to put “massive pressure” on him to delete comments about Tibet from his website.
“Self-censorship is out of the question,” Brand said, describing the request from the Chinese ambassador as “absurd.”
The Christian Democrat had intended to travel to Tibet with a parliamentary delegation in late May, his staff said.
‘New low’ for Chinese ambassador
Brand called on German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to issue a “clear response to this unspeakable action of an accredited ambassador in Germany.”
The Human Rights Committee has tried for many years to travel to China to get a view of the human rights situation in Tibet.
“While we’ve always been denied this, parliamentary committees for business and commerce have made trips to China with no problems,” Brand criticized, adding that the Chinese ambassador to Germany had reached a “new low.”
“We can’t just accept it when authoritarian regimes like China, Russia or Turkey carry out censorship and oppression, certainly not if they want to export these methods – and to Germany too,” Brad said.
‘Sign of weakness’
Ahead of Chinese-German government consultations, scheduled for June, the Christian Democrat said Berlin must set an example.
“When it comes to human rights, pussyfooting around doesn’t pay off. Human rights are not an internal affair of the state of China,” Brand said, adding that the travel ban against him and “repeated attempts at blackmail” by the ambassador were a sign of weakness.
“The reported attempts at blackmail and intimidation by the Chinese Embassy are symptomatic of Beijing’s strategy to stop criticism of the worrying human rights situation in Tibet,” said Kai Mueller, the head of the International Campaign for Tibet.
Repression and social marginalization
Tibet has been under Chinese control since 1950, with Tibetans repeatedly reporting religious repression and an increasing influx of Han-Chinese social marginalization in the homeland.
Following a failed uprising in 1959, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, the Dalai Lama, has lived in exile.

Community protests force temporary halt of Tibet lithium mine operation
May 16, 2016
Radio Free Asia, May 11, 2016 – In a rare move, authorities in southwestern China’s Sichuan province have ordered a temporary halt to a Chinese mining company’s operations in a Tibetan-populated area after first telling protesters they had no right to ask that the work be stopped.
The order issued on May 6 by authorities in the Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and in Kangding city cites environmental problems resulting from the mining and “solemnly commits” to block further operations until community concerns can be resolved.
A copy of the order, which was written in Chinese, was obtained by Radio Free Asia’s Tibetan Service.
Authorities had earlier appealed to Tibetan protesters to end their blockade of a highway aimed at ending work at the lithium mine, which was linked to water pollution and fish deaths in the region, sources told RFA in earlier reports.
More than 100 Tibetans from five nomadic villages in Dartsedo (Kangding) county staged the protest, fearing further environmental damage after the mining company announced last week that it would resume operations after an almost three-year halt.
“The authorities convened a meeting where they tried to convince the community that the land is owned by the government and that the mining operations are a government decision,” one source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The local community was told they had no right to block the work, he said.
Chinese security forces armed with rifles surrounded the protesters at one point but did not attack, sources said.
Tibet has become an important source of minerals needed for China’s economic growth, and Chinese mining operations in Tibetan areas have often led to widespread environmental damage, including the pollution of water sources for livestock and humans, experts say.
Reported by RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney

Poet monk sentenced to seven years in prison on unknown charges
May 9, 2016
Central Tibetan Administration, May 9, 2016 – It has been learned today that a Kirti monk and writer Jo Losang Jamyang, 28, whose pen name is Lomik, has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. The hearing took place at the Lunggu (chinese: Wenchuan) county court in Ngaba prefecture.
Lomik was arrested by Chinese police on the streets of Ngaba town at around 11.30 pm on 17 April 2015. He was held in detention, without being brought to trial or informing his family of his whereabouts, for over a year. The charges on which he was tried by the court are not known.
Lomik comes from Jotsang household in village no 3 of Meruma township, son of father Jodor and mother Jamkar. He joined Kirti monastery at a young age and was a student of the Prajnaparamita class. He has also taken part-time courses in non-religious studies at Larung Gar monastery in Serta and the Northwest Minorities University in Lanzhou. He participated in many speaking events, and is the author of numerous poems and regular social commentary, including on freedom of expression for writers in Tibet. A collection of his poems has been published as The Swirling Yellow Mist.
–Report filed by Lobsang Yeshe and Kanyag Tsering–

Protesters in eastern Tibet demand shut-down of polluting mine
May 9, 2016
Tibet Post International, May 6, 2016 – More than 100 Tibetans have protested against Chinese mining operations at a site considered sacred by local Tibetan residents, drawing a large police force to the area and prompting fears of clashes.
‘The protest took place at Yulshok Gargye in Minyak County, Kham Province of eastern Tibet (Ch: Minya, Kangding County, Sichuan, China),” on May 4, 2016,’ Aka Penpa, a monk from South India told the TPI.
He said that “the ongoing mining has led to toxic wastes being dumped into the river resulting in the death of a large number of fishes.”
“About 100 local Tibetans then gathered in Yulshok Gargye to demand an end to the project and calling for urgent action to protect environment and wildlife,” he added.
The locals have engaged in shouting slogans “there is no rule of law for the Communist Party” and saying they lied to us, they cheated on us, they betrayed us and broken promises.
‘Chinese authorities deployed dozens of police forces in vehicles to the protest site, immediately after the event,’ TPI’s source said.
“The situation is still very tense, as there are growing fears among the locals that the security crackdown, may take place in the open sky,” sources said, adding: “It is also unknown whether or not the Chinese authorities arrested any of these Tibetan protesters.”
Yulshok Gargye is a sacred place located in the Minyak County, less than 20 minutes walk from the center of Pa-Lhagang, which is one of the holiest site in Tibetan Buddhism.
Waste from the mines, in operation since 2005, but stopped in recent years because local protests against the project, which has been dumped in the “Lhuchu River,” resulting in the death of large numbers of fishes. Sources said “they restarted the mine in April this year, resulting in the death of another large numbers of fishes.”
“Tibetan nomads have protested the Chinese mining operations, which poison drinking water and kill herd animals,” he added.
The protest site is also located near Mt Minyak Gangkar, one of the highest mountains in Kham region of eastern Tibet, which is located near Dartsedo City. It is with elevation of 7556m. The town of Dartsedo was an important trade center between Tibet and China, and for centuries its importance lay on the tea-horse trade. Mt Minyak Gangkar is also one of the most sacred snow-capped mountain in the Kham region.
Mining operations in Tibet have led to frequent standoffs with Tibetans who accuse Chinese firms of disrupting sites of spiritual significance and polluting the environment as they extract local wealth.
The operations also have caused landslide, severe damage to local forests, grasslands, and drinking water. Waste from the mines has been dumped in the rivers, and mining activities have polluted the air.

Tibetan mother of five self-immolates to protest Chinese rule
May 9, 2016
Radio Free Asia, May 6, 2016 – A Tibetan mother of five has burned herself to death in southwestern China’s Sichuan province in a challenge to Beijing’s rule in the second such protest in a Tibetan area of China this year, a source in the region told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
Sonam Tso, believed to have been in her 50s, self-immolated on March 23 near a monastery in Dzoege (in Chinese, Ruo’ergai) county in the Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
News of Tso’s protest was initially delayed in reaching outside contacts due to communications clampdowns imposed by Chinese authorities in the area, but her self-immolation followed by almost a month a similar burning in Sichuan’s Kardze prefecture that killed a young monk.
Tso, a native of Akyi township’s Tsa village, launched her protest outside Dzoege’s Sera monastery after telling her husband, who was walking with her, to go ahead, saying that she would join him later, RFA’s source said.
“A young monk heard her call out for the return of [exiled spiritual leader] the Dalai Lama and for freedom for Tibet as she burned,” he said.
Tso’s husband and the monk tried to put out the flames, and an elderly monk named Tsultrim, Tso’s uncle, then brought her inside the monastery.
“She was later put into a vehicle to be taken to a hospital, but she died before leaving the monastery,” the source said.
Speaking separately to RFA, a Tibetan source in exile confirmed the incident had occurred, citing contacts in the region.
Police detained Tso’s uncle for eight days for discussing the incident with other people and forced him to delete the photos he had taken of Tso’s protest, the source said, adding that her husband, Kalsang Gyaltsen, was called in for questioning three times.
“She leaves behind five children—two boys and three girls,” he said.
Tso’s protest brings to 145 the number of self-immolations by Tibetans living in China since the wave of fiery protests began in 2009.
Most protests feature demands for Tibetan freedom and the return of spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since an abortive national uprising in 1959. A handful of self-immolation protests have been over local land or property disputes.
Reported by Sonam Topgyal for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Success of “middle way approach” a priority, says Tibet’s political leader
May 2, 2016
By Geeta Anand and Tenzin Tsering
New York Times, April 27, 2016 – The current political leader of Tibet’s’s exiled government, Lobsang Sangay, won re-election by a decisive majority, the election commission announced Wednesday, and he pledged to push harder for a dialogue with China to resolve the future of Tibet.
“My principal objective will be to resolve the issue of Tibet through the middle way approach,” Mr. Sangay said in a telephone interview.
The “middle way” approach was set in motion by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people, nearly 30 years ago, in which he softened his demand for independence for the approximately six million Tibetans living in China, instead seeking self-government for them within China.
The Dalai Lama, 80, gave up his political role five years ago in favor of elections to choose a sikyong, a role similar to prime minister. Mr. Sangay was chosen in the first election in 2011.
Both candidates for the sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration, as the exiled government is known, favored the middle way approach, even though a vocal minority believe in fighting for full independence for Tibet. Mr. Sangay, 48, won 33,876 votes, while Penpa Tsering, the speaker of the exiled Parliament, secured 24,846 votes, Sonam Choephel Shosur, the election commissioner, said at a news conference.