China threatens countermeasures after Dalai Lama speaks at EU Parliament
September 19, 2016
Reuters, September 19, 2016 – China expressed anger on Monday and threatened countermeasures after exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama spoke at the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg and met its president, Martin Schulz.
China regards the 80-year-old, Nobel Peace Prize-winning monk as a separatist, though he says he merely seeks genuine autonomy for his Himalayan homeland, which Communist Chinese troops “peacefully liberated” in 1950.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the European Parliament and Schultz had ignored China’s “strong opposition” about meeting the Dalai Lama, which ran contrary to the European Union’s promises to China on the issue of Tibet.
“China is resolutely opposed to the mistaken actions of the European Parliament,” Lu told a daily news briefing, adding that its leaders’ insistence on taking an erroneous position had damaged China’s core interests.
“China absolutely cannot remain indifferent, and we will make the correct choice in accordance with our judgment of the situation,” he added, without elaborating on what China may do.
Few foreign leaders are willing to meet the Dalai Lama these days, fearful of provoking a strong reaction from China, the world’s second-largest economy.
Last week, Beijing warned Taiwan not to allow the Dalai Lama to visit, after a high-profile Taiwan legislator invited him to the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.
Tibet’s spiritual leader told the European Parliament last week he hoped the Tibetan issue would be resolved but urged the outside world and the European Union in particular not to hold back from criticizing Beijing.
The Dalai Lama, who also met the European Parliament’s foreign affairs chairman, Elmar Brok, fled to India in 1959 following a failed uprising against the Chinese.
Rights groups and exiles accuse China of trampling on the religious and cultural rights of the Tibetan people, charges strongly denied by Beijing, which says its rule has brought prosperity to a once backward region.
(Reporting by Sue-Lin Wong; Editing by Ben Blanchard and Clarence Fernandez)

Seventh International Conference of Tibet Support Groups
Brussels, September 8 – 10th. 2016
Statement
September 12, 2016
The Seventh International Conference of Tibet Support Groups (TSGs) was convened in Brussels by the Tibet Interest Group in the European Parliament, and co-hosted by the International Campaign for Tibet, Lights on Tibet, les Amis du Tibet and the Tibetan Community in Belgium and facilitated by the Department of Information and International Relations of the Central Tibetan Administration. Over 250 delegates representing support groups from 50 countries and all continents, members of other NGOs and special guests participated in the conference.
The Conference drew inspiration and strategic benefit from the diverse skills and perspectives and from the sense of common purpose of TSGs from around the world. It examined the current situation in occupied Tibet, especially the political, human rights and environmental developments there, assessed the state of the Tibet freedom movement, and drew up plans for coordinated action.
During the inaugural ceremony on September 8, 2016, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who addressed the Conference as the Guest of Honour, explained his three commitments, in view of his recent devolution of political authority. Other speakers at the inaugural session included members of the European Parliament, Thomas Mann and Cristian Dan Preda, and the Speaker of the Flemish Parliament, Jan Peumans, as well as the former President of the European Economic and Social Committee, Henri Malosse, and the Chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet, Richard Gere. Sikyong Dr. Lobsang Sangay reiterated the Tibetan leadership’s commitment to resolve the issue of Tibet through the Middle Way approach and called on the international community to support these efforts. The Conference was graced by the participation of the Speaker of the Tibetan Parliament, Khenpo Sonam Tenphel, the Vice President of the German Parliament, Claudia Roth, and member of the European Parliament, Csaba Sogor, who addressed the closing session.
The Conference welcomes the strong participation of Chinese lawyers, scholars and human rights activists in its deliberations and regards their engagement as an expression of the growing solidarity between the Chinese people and the Tibetan people.
The Conference notes with great concern the worsening of the human rights situation in Tibet, including the repression of religious freedom and the suppression of the Tibetan national identity and language under the increasingly authoritarian regime. It expresses solidarity with all Political Prisoners in Tibet. In this context, the Conference welcomes recent joint actions by concerned governments on China and, building on this, urges increased action on Tibet.
The Conference is dismayed at the hardening of the positions of the Chinese Communist Party and the government authorities towards His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration and their refusal to engage in dialogue with them to resolve the issue of Tibet. It is deeply saddened by the many Tibetan men and women who have chosen the ultimate sacrifice –of taking their own lives– to express their yearning for freedom and determination to save the Tibetan identity and religion, to protest the destruction of both by the PRC, and call for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s return.
The Conference is profoundly concerned about the devastating impact of China’s policies on Tibet’s fragile and globally vital environment, notably the damming of Asia’s rivers, destructive mining practices and coercive settlement of nomads, all of which exacerbates the impacts of climate change and environmental destruction on the Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding regions.
The Conference expresses its complete and continuing solidarity with the non-violent struggle of the Tibetan people for freedom and for a restoration of their fundamental human rights. It commends the initiatives of parliamentarians and government officials of many countries who persist in pressing the PRC to respect the rights of the Tibetan people and who urge its leadership to resume dialogue with representatives of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to respond positively to his efforts to pursue a mutually beneficial solution through the Middle Way approach, which calls for genuine autonomy for the whole Tibetan people.
The Conference considers the Chinese government’s demand that His Holiness declare that Tibet has been a part of China since antiquity entirely unacceptable both because of the falseness of this historical claim and because this precondition forms an obstacle to earnest negotiations. It reaffirms its conviction that Tibet has not historically been a part of China and that the Tibetan people have the right to determine their own destiny. The Conference emphasizes that the PRC cannot obtain legitimacy for its rule over Tibet by attempting to force His Holiness and members of the international community to endorse its untruthful claims. It can only gain legitimacy for a role in Tibet from the Tibetan people themselves, through a mutually beneficial agreement and by implementing real changes in its policies and behavior towards the Tibetans in accordance with the latter’s needs and aspirations. The conference consequently calls on the Chinese government to unconditionally resume dialogue and on other governments to resist Chinese government pressure to endorse China’s claim to Tibet, and to persuade China’s leaders to abandon the shameless precondition.
The Conference commends the Tibetan community in exile and individual Tibetans for exercising their democratic rights in electing the leadership of the Central Tibetan Administration, the legitimate representative of the Tibetan nation and people.
Conference participants reaffirm their commitment to supporting the Tibetan people in their struggle for freedom and for respect of their human rights and protect the plateau’s environment. They fully support His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration leadership’s persistent call for earnest dialogue to resolve the Tibetan issue and will strengthen their efforts to press the international community to persuade the Chinese leadership to do so. The Tibet Support Groups will continue their dedication until a satisfactory solution has been achieved.

More Suicides Reported in Protest of Destruction at Sichuan’s Larung Gar
2016-08-29
Two more Buddhist nuns living at Sichuan’s Larung Gar Academy have killed themselves following a suicide in July to protest Chinese authorities’ destruction of large parts of the Tibetan Buddhist study center, with the attempted suicide of yet another woman blocked by friends at the last minute, according to Tibetan sources.
Tsering Dolma, aged about 20, hanged herself on Aug. 17 “when she could no longer bear the pain of seeing the destruction of Larung Gar,” a source living in the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service. “She left behind a note expressing her distress at the demolition and complaining that the Chinese will not let them live in peace.”
A native of Mewa township in Marthang (in Chinese, Hongyuan) county in Sichuan’s Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Dolma had been seen before her death to be “depressed and worried” over Chinese authorities’ destruction of thousands of dwellings at the academy, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“So she hanged herself,” he said.
A nun named Semga, a native of Dowa village in Ngaba’s Dzamthang (Rangtang) county, also recently killed herself, though details on how and when she died were not immediately available, while a third nun attempted suicide “though others intervened in time and saved her,” the source said.
The deaths follow the suicide on July 20 of Rinzin Dolma, a nun who hanged herself as Chinese work crews began to tear down monks’ and nuns’ houses to reduce what authorities have described as overcrowding at the Larung Gar academy in Ngaba’s Serthar (Seda) county, sources said in earlier reports.
Many thousands of Tibetans and Han Chinese study at the sprawling Larung Gar complex, which was founded in 1980 by the late religious teacher Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and is one of the world’s largest and most important centers for the study of Tibetan Buddhism.
Orders from higher-up
The order now to reduce the number of Larung Gar’s residents by about half to a maximum level of 5,000 is not a county plan “but comes from higher authorities,” with China’s president Xi Jinping taking a personal interest in the matter, sources told RFA in earlier reports.
Chinese authorities have stationed armed security forces at the work site and are warning that attempts at protest or resistance will be punished by arrests and incarceration, one source said, adding that armed police have also been deployed to nearby areas.
Informed by her friends of Dolma’s death, officials of Larung Gar’s government-appointed management committee said at first that they were unwilling to look into the case, but later came to try to claim the body, RFA’s source said.
“They said that their duty according to official instructions was to be sure that the demolition goes ahead, though, and that they would not be held responsible for anyone’s death.”
Hearing this, the nuns “wailed in grief,” he said.
Rights groups have slammed the government-ordered destruction at Larung Gar, with New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) saying that Beijing should allow the Tibetan people to decide for themselves how best to practice their religion.
“If authorities somehow believe that the Larung Gar facilities are overcrowded, the answer is simple,” HRW China director Sophie Richardson said in a statement in June.
“Allow Tibetans and other Buddhists to build more monasteries.”
Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Tibetan Monk Missing in Detention is Found Serving Prison Term in Sichuan
2016-09-01
A Tibetan monk missing since his detention by police last year following a solitary protest in southwestern China’s Sichuan province has been located by family members in a prison after being handed a three-year sentence in a secret trial, according to a Tibetan source.
Lobsang Kelsang, then 19, launched his protest at around 3:00 p.m. on September 7 on a central street of the main town of Sichuan’s Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) county and was quickly overpowered by police stationed nearby, sources told RFA in earlier reports.
“He was carrying a photo of [exiled spiritual leader] His Holiness the Dalai Lama over his head and was calling out for Tibetan freedom,” one source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A Tibetan layman who attempted to interfere with the arrest was also detained, and police at one point fired gunshots into the air to disperse a forming crowd, a local source said.
Frustrated for months in their attempts to learn Kelsang’s whereabouts in detention, family members have now learned he is being held in Deyang prison in Deyang City’s Huang Xu town in Sichuan, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service this week.
“He had been detained for a while in a prison in Maowun [Mao] county, and while there he was secretly sentenced to three years in prison and was moved to Deyang,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Family members still lack full details of Kelsang’s present condition, especially his health, and have not been allowed to meet with him,” the source said.
Kelsang, a native of Ngaba’s Meruma township, had been enrolled as a novice monk at Ngaba’s Kirti monastery, the scene of repeated self-immolations and other protests by Tibetan monks, former monks, and nuns opposed to Chinese rule, the source said.
“In August this year, another Kirti monk, named Adrak, was also secretly given a three-year term,” he said.
Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule 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 Kunsang Tenzin for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

U.N. rights envoy says Chinese authorities interfered with his work
August 29, 2016
By Ben Blanchard
Reuters, August 23, 2016 – A United Nations-appointed human rights envoy said on Tuesday that the Chinese government interfered with his work during a visit to China by blocking access to individuals whom he had hoped to meet.
Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told reporters at the end of a nine-day visit to China that he had notified the government in advance of academics he wanted to meet on his visit, a routine practice for a U.N. special rapporteur.
“None of those meetings were arranged, and the message I got from many of the people I contacted was that they had been advised that they should be on vacation at this time,” said Alston, an Australian who is a law professor at the New York University School of Law.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
“The position that the United Nations has always followed and that I’ve followed in every other country that I’ve visited, and there are many, is that the rapporteur is entitled to meet with whomsoever he wants to meet with, that he’s entitled to go wherever he wants to,” Alston said.
Alston’s end-of-mission statement points to higher levels of poverty among ethnic minorities in China. Read his statement at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20402&LangID=E