Tibetan Woman Dies in Custody | Two Detained for Sending Money to India
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/29/china-tibetan-woman-dies-custody
(New York) – Chinese authorities should investigate the death of a Tibetan woman in custody and release her wrongfully detained cousin, Human Rights Watch said today. Lhamo, a herder from Driru county in Nagchu, Tibet Autonomous Region, died in a local hospital in August 2020 shortly after being transferred there from police custody. Charges against her cousin Tenzin Tarpa should be immediately dropped.
In June, the authorities detained Tarpa, a 39-year-old entrepreneur from Chaktse township in Driru dealing in medicinal herbs and other local products, apparently on charges of having sent money to family members or other Tibetans in India, a common practice. Lhamo, a 36-year-old mother of three, was detained two days later, apparently on the same charges. She had been in good health before her detention. In August, her family members were summoned to the hospital, where they found her badly bruised and unable to speak. She died two days later, and her body was immediately cremated, which prevented a medical examination.
“The death of Lhamo, a Tibetan herder, is the latest in a pattern of apparent torture and death in Chinese state custody,” said Sophie Richardson, China director. “Tibetan regional authorities should be held accountable for serious violations, including arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, and deprivation of the right to life.”
Although sending money outside the country is not formally a crime under Chinese law, the authorities regard contact between Tibetans in Tibet and those abroad as “endangering national security.”
The cases also illustrate the Chinese government’s long-running mistreatment of Tibetans, Human Rights Watch said. Tarpa, a former monk, had been under suspicion by local authorities since 2012, when he was among a number of monks from the Tibet Autonomous Region forced out of the famous Larung Gar monastery in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province. Tarpa then started a Tibetan-medium school for children in Chaktse, but the authorities closed it down, contending that it was “illegal.” After that, he started the Local Produce Trading Company, which became successful.
Due to the government’s extreme restrictions on communications for minority populations in China, reports of cases like Lhamo and Tarpa’s rarely become known outside the country. This is particularly true of Driru county, where local authorities crushed peaceful protests in 2013-2014, and restrictions on basic freedom are among the most severe in the region.
United Nations standards adopted by the General Assembly set out that all death-in-custody cases should be subjected to “prompt, impartial, and effective investigations into the circumstances and causes” of the death. As the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions has noted, since there is a presumption of state responsibility due to the custodial setting and the government’s obligation to ensure and respect the right to life, the government has to affirmatively provide evidence to rebut the presumption of state responsibility. Absent proof that it is not responsible, the government has an obligation to provide reparations to the family of the deceased.
The Chinese government also has rules dealing with deaths in custody. These require the police to “immediately conduct” an investigation into the cause of death by viewing and preserving the surveillance video of the detention cell and questioning fellow detainees, doctors, and guards, among other measures.
A collective statement from UN human rights experts in June underlined the need for independent investigation of the range of human rights violations by the Chinese government. They expressed grave concern over China’s failures to respect human rights and abide by its international obligations, and recommended establishing an impartial and independent UN mechanism to monitor and report on abuses “in view of the urgency of the situations” in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet.
“For decades Chinese officials have gotten away with detaining people without justification and mistreating them, including to the point of death,” Richardson said. “Those officials cannot be relied on to investigate these violations, creating an urgent need for independent, international investigations by UN human rights experts.”

China’s Narrow Win of UN Human Rights Council Seat Signals Eroding Support
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/seat-10132020183037.html
China narrowly won a seat on the United Nations’ Human Rights Council Tuesday, prompting a rights group to call the vote “embarrassing” for a country that has worked overtime to whitewash its image and used its growing power to stifle criticism of its persecution of ethnic Uyghurs and Tibetans. The Asian power secured only 139 votes during a secret ballot at the 75th U.N. General Assembly in Geneva from among 193 member-nations, placing fourth out of five countries vying for four seats in the Asia-Pacific region.
China beat out only Saudi Arabia, which has faced its own share of condemnation over its rights record. Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Nepal also won seats in the race to represent Asia-Pacific countries on the 47-member council. Fifteen nations in total secured seats on the council Tuesday—including Russia and Cuba, whose rights records the U.S. called “abhorrent”—and will serve for three years from January next year. The vote marks the fifth time China was elected to the council, after winning seats in 2006, 2009, 2013, and 2016.
Sophie Richardson, China director for New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), called China’s vote tally “a significant drop” from the support it received when it was elected to the council in 2016. “It’s an incredibly embarrassing loss for China—it got 11 fewer votes than Nepal and it came in fourth out of five for that regional group, doing better only than Saudi Arabia,” she said. “That’s a pretty bad standard.” Richardson noted that in 2016, China’s Foreign Ministry said that the 180 votes the country received in 2016 reflected “global support” for its position on human rights issues. “I’m extremely eager to hear how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tries to spin having hemorrhaged support at this year’s vote,” she said. “I want to be very clear that Human Rights Watch called for China not to be elected to the council. But seeing this drop in support is significant and I think it tells us a lot about what we can try to accomplish at the Human Rights Council, even though China is a member again.” Richardson said that having a seat at the council is a “two-way street,” noting that member governments “are also subject to greater scrutiny themselves.” “And so, in that sense, I think we can probably reasonably hope to see more discussion of Beijing’s appalling human rights violations against Tibetans and against Uyghurs,” she added.
Eroding support
A press release issued by China’s mission to the United Nations welcoming its election to the council said Beijing “attaches great importance to the promotion and protection of human rights” and suggested that “following a path with Chinese characteristics, China has made great achievements in human rights development.” In addition to working to promote international exchange and cooperation, the mission said China will use its seat on the council to “oppose the politicization of human rights issues and wrong practices of double standards to make greater contributions to the healthy development of international human rights.”
Last week, the U.K. and Germany led a group of 39 member states at the U.N. General Assembly in condemning China’s policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since early 2017. The two nations—as well as the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, and several members of the European Union—insisted that China also respect human rights in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), where Tibetans have similarly seen their freedoms eroded under Beijing’s rule and are facing forced labor and other abuses seen in the XUAR. The condemnation marked a significant increase in the number of countries willing to stand up to China’s threats of cutting off trade with nations that support such statements. A similar resolution last year received only 23 backers.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration—which withdrew the U.S. from the Human Rights Council in 2018 in part for what it has said are membership rules that “allow the election of the world’s worst human rights abusers to seats on the Council”—condemned the General Assembly vote in a statement issued by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “Prior to making this decision, and after our exit, the United States has urged U.N. member states to take immediate action to reform the Council before it became irreparable,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, those calls went unheeded, and today the U.N. General Assembly once again elected countries with abhorrent human rights records, including China, Russia, and Cuba.” The administration has sanctioned Chinese officials for rights abuses in both the XUAR and the TAR, despite Beijing’s claims that its policies in the regions protect the country against “terrorism,” “religious extremism,” and “separatism.”
Exile groups dismayed
Uyghur and Tibetan exile groups expressed dismay over Tuesday’s vote, saying China’s re-election must serve as a means by which member states can hold China to account for its rights violations. “Governments committing genocide shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the Human Rights Council,” said Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) executive director Omer Kanat,” in a reference to a June report about a dramatic increase in recent years in the number of forced sterilizations and abortions targeting Uyghurs. Author Adrian Zenz believes the campaign may amount to government-led genocide under United Nations definitions. “It’s clear from the vote, however, that China has been losing the confidence of the international community over time,” Kanat added.
Rushan Abbas, executive director of Campaign For Uyghurs, said in a statement that China’s participation as an equal in the United Nations “effectively cripples the U.N. from fulfilling the purpose for which it was formed.” “No words can express the feeling of watching the world’s greatest human rights abuser be granted a greater platform to perpetuate its genocidal ideology,” she said. “The U.N. has made its own reputation the laughingstock of the world, and its corruption has compromised the lives of billions.”
Kai Mueller, executive director of the International Campaign for Tibet’s Germany office, called the vote a “setback” and warned that activists will now “need to be more aware of the … intention of the Chinese government to change the international perception of human rights” to fit more with that of the country’s ruling Communist Party. “The Chinese government will more forcefully push the narrative on so-called ‘development,’ of so-called ‘poverty alleviation’ in Tibet, and Tibetans need to be ready to counter those positions by the Chinese delegation at the Human Rights Council,” he said, referring to pretexts that Beijing uses to justify its policies in the TAR.“ China is certainly pushing for support, is certainly organizing support, at the United Nation bodies such as the Human Rights Council … Foremost it’s those unfortunate human rights violators such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Belarus, Russia for example, that speak out for China and that should give reason for concern for the international community.”

Tibetan political leader sees growing U.S. support after meeting new envoy
By Sanjeev Miglani
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The head of the Tibetan government in exile said he met the new U.S. special coordinator on Tibet, whose appointment last week angered China, at the State Department, the first political head of the Tibetans in exile to be hosted there in 60 years.
Slideshow ( 2 images )
U.S. Secretary of State of Mike Pompeo last week appointed senior human rights official Robert Destro as special envoy for Tibetan issues. Beijing responded sharply, saying this was an attempt to destabilise Tibet and that it would not allow any interference there.
While U.S. officials including most U.S. presidents have met the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, at the White House, they have been careful about formally hosting the head of the government-in-exile as this would be seen as a major provocation by Beijing.
Lobsang Sangay, the president of the Tibetan Central Administration (CTA), said this was the first time the head of the CTA was received at the State Department.
“So this is historic, they are thereby acknowledging the Tibetans’ democratically elected leader and the CTA. It was a sound political gesture on the part of the U.S government,” he told Reuters over telephone from the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump has not yet met the Dalai Lama but has taken a tough posture towards China. Relations between Washington and Beijing are at their lowest point in decades over a range of issues, including trade, Taiwan, human rights, the South China Sea and the coronavirus.
China seized control over Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a “peaceful liberation” that helped the remote Himalayan region throw off its “feudalist” past. But critics say Beijing’s rule amounts to “cultural genocide.”
Sangay said he and Destro agreed on the early passage of the new Tibet Policy and Support Act through the U.S. Senate in the next few months.
The legislation, which was approved by the House of Representatives this year, lay out a stronger U.S. stand on Tibet since the original act in 2002, Sangay said.
It calls for the establishment of a U.S. consulate in Lhasa, the absolute right of the Tibetans to choose a successor to the Dalai Lama and preserving Tibet’s environment.
“This is big, it is a major revision of the 2002 Tibet policy act,” Sangay said. “Everything we wanted, is there in the act.”
Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky
Nuestros Estándares: Los principios Thomson Reuters.

“We lost a true patriot of Tibet”: CTA mourns demise of Takna Jigme Sangpo, Tibet’s longest-serving political prisoner
October 17, 2020
Published By Bureau Reporter
Dharamshala: Tributes poured in from around the world on Saturday as word spread that the former Tibetan political prisoner who spent almost half his life in Chinese prison and had spent the remaining in exile relentlessly advocating of the Tibetan cause had died at the age of 91.
Takna Jigme Sangpo, Tibet’s longest political prisoner passed away earlier this morning at an elderly care home in Turbenthal, Switzerland, where he had been based since receiving political asylum in 2003, a year after he completed 37-year sentence in Chinese prison.
President Dr Lobsang Sangay of the Central Tibetan Administration expressed profound condolences at the demise, saying, “I have been an admirer of his courage since my youth days. It was an honour meeting him in person and I also took part in the launch of his autobiography in Dharamshala. We have lost a true patriot of Tibet.”
Having spent 37 years in Chinese prison, Takna Jigme Sangpo was the longest-serving Tibetan political prisoner. He was reportedly first arrested in 1960 while teaching at Lhasa Primary School and charged with “corrupting the minds of children with reactionary ideas”. In 1964 he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in Sangyip Prison over comments regarding Chinese repression of Tibetans and was sent to labour camp in Lhasa. He was again sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in Sangyip Prison for ‘counter-revolutionary’ propaganda in 1970. He had been caught attempting to send a document reporting Chinese atrocities to His Holiness the Dalai Lama via his niece, who was trying to flee Tibet.
At the age of 53, Takna Jigme Sangpo was released from prison in 1979 and transferred to the ‘Reform-Through-Labor’ Unit 1 in Nyethang, west of Lhasa, but he was arrested again on September 3, 1983, by the Lhasa City Public Security Bureau for pasting a ‘personally written’ wall-poster protesting against Chinese authority on the main gate of the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa.
On 24 November 1983, he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for “spreading and inciting counter revolutionary propaganda,” and five years deprivation of political rights. On 1 December 1988, his sentence was increased by another five years for “spreading and inciting counter-revolutionary propaganda”.
On 6 December 1991, Takna Jigme made another bold attempt at an individual protest. During an official visit by a Swiss delegation, Jigme shouted “Free Tibet” in English, a phrase he had specially learnt for the occasion, and slogans in Chinese and Tibetan, from his cell. The authorities tried to explain away the incident by claiming to the delegates that he was ‘mad’.
Takna Jigme was subsequently sentenced on 4 April 1992 to a further eight years imprisonment, and an additional three years deprivation of civil and political rights, bringing his sentence to 28 years and by his release on 3 September 2011, he would have spent 41 years in prison.
He lost his eyesight as a result of suffering forced labour, prison atrocities and harsh prison conditions. “Torture and degrading ill-treatment, inhuman interrogation, solitary confinement, forced labour and indoctrination sessions are common practices used by the Chinese authorities in Tibet’s prisons,” he testified in 2003.
As a result of sustained efforts by the Central Tibetan Administration and international community pressing the Chinese government for his release, Takna Jigme was released on medical parole at the age of 76 in March 2002.
Thirty-seven years behind bars had not deterred the spirit of Takna Jigme Sangpo. In August 2002, he settled in Switzerland as a political refugee and relentlessly advocated for the issue of Tibet and testified at various human rights forums on the gross violations of human rights in Chinese-occupied Tibet. In April 2003, he first testified at the UN Commission on Human Rights, in which he said: “this old man from Tibet, appeals to all nations in this hall to help end the human suffering of the Tibetans. Please urge the Chinese government to open earnest negotiations with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to resolve the long-standing Tibetan Issue in the interest of both the Tibetan and Chinese peoples. The unfortunate people of Tibet, including the political prisoners, who are the same human being as everyone else in this hall, urgently need your support before it is too late…I pray for an end to the suffering of all political prisoners in this world”. On 6 June 2008, he addressed the UN Council. Takna Jigme Sangpo’s biography titled ‘Metse Nyongtsor’ was released on 24 January 2014 in Dharamshala by Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay and was published by Gu Chu Sum Movement of Tibet.

Lawmakers Warn US About Failing to Adapt to Growing Chinese Threat
https://www.voanews.com/usa/lawmakers-warn-us-about-failing-adapt-growing-chinese-threat
U.S. lawmakers are sounding alarms about the threat from China, warning Washington has so far failed to keep up with Beijing as it emerges as a global power. The concerns, voiced in two separate reports Wednesday, criticize U.S. intelligence agencies and policymakers for clinging too long to the notion that increased trade and interaction with China would push Beijing to eventually align itself with Western values.
Instead, the reports argue, the United States is struggling to push back as it faces a real danger of being replaced by China on the world stage. “The stakes are high,” according to a redacted report released by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee. “Absent a significant realignment of resources, the U.S. government and intelligence community will fail to achieve the outcomes required to enable continued U.S. competition with China on the global stage for decades to come,” the report said.
The House Intelligence Committee report, based on hundreds of hours of interviews with intelligence officials and reviews of thousands of assessments, criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for becoming overly focused on their counterterrorism mission and for failing to adapt to the threats of a changing world. “While the United States was busy engaging al-Qaida, ISIS [Islamic State] and their affiliates, offshoots and acolytes, Washington’s unchallenged dominance over the global system slipped away,” the report said.
To better counter China and other emerging threats, the report said, U.S. intelligence agencies need to make better use of information commonly available on the internet, social media and elsewhere. The report also said U.S. intelligence officials need to pay more attention to nonimmediate, nonmilitary threats “such as global health, economic security and climate change.” And the report called for a greater focus on recruiting and mentoring what it described as “the next generation of China analysts.” “The good news is that we still have time to adapt,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff in a statement. “It’s my hope that the intelligence community will work hand in hand with the congressional oversight committees to make these necessary changes quickly.”
A second report released Wednesday, by Republican lawmakers, was no less damning, recommending more than 400 changes to Washington’s China strategy. “To preserve democracy and freedom around the world, the U.S. must act decisively with our allies to regain the initiative,” the China Task Force report warned. Chinese Communist Party ideology “is undermining the core principles of the international system and putting Americans’ safety and prosperity at risk,” it said. “Leniency and accommodation of the CCP and its oppressive agenda is no longer an option.”
The report calls on policymakers to boost counterintelligence operations against China and to make sure that the U.S. medical and national security supply chains no longer need to reply on Chinese-made goods. It also recommends increased spending on defense to better counter Chinese nuclear capabilities as well as China’s growing conventional forces. “For more than 40 years, we have tried to bring them into the family of nations as a responsible partner, but they have refused to behave responsibly,” China Task Force Chairman Michael McCaul said in a statement.