U.S. State Department reports widespread violations of religious freedom in Tibet
August 21, 2017
By Mollie Lortie
Tibet Post International, August 16, 2017 – The U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report for 2016, released on August 15, 2017, says the Chinese “authorities engaged in widespread interference in religious practices, especially in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries,” which has led to a continued ‘decline’ in the traditional monastic system.
The report says, “Across the Tibetan Plateau there were reports of forced disappearance, physical abuse, prolonged detention, and arbitrary arrest of people due to their religious practice, as well as forced expulsions from monasteries, restrictions on religious gatherings, and destruction of monastery related dwellings, according to media reporting and human rights organizations.
“Security forces maintained a permanent presence at some monasteries. In many Tibetan areas police detained monks and lay persons who called for freedom, human rights, and religious liberty, or who expressed support for the Dalai Lama or solidarity with individuals who had self-immolated. Several monks were detained without formal criminal charges. Restrictions on religious activities were particularly severe around politically and religiously sensitive anniversaries and events.
“Tibet scholars stated the Chinese government’s ban on minors entering monasteries and nunneries and restrictions on travel of monks and nuns threatened the traditional transmission and practice of Tibetan Buddhism. According to human rights organizations, authorities scrutinized and sought to control monastic operations and restricted travel for religious purposes, including to neighboring countries such as India and Nepal.”
“In the TAR and other Tibetan areas, authorities engaged in widespread interference in religious practices, especially in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries. There were reports of forced disappearance, physical abuse, prolonged detention without trial, and arrests of individuals due to their religious practices. Travel restrictions hindered traditional religious practices and pilgrimages. Repression increased around politically sensitive events, religious anniversaries, and the Dalai Lama’s birthday, according to numerous sources. Reportedly, authorities evicted more than 2,000 monks and nuns from Buddhist institutes at Larung Gar and Yachen Gar, destroying the homes where they resided and subjecting many of them to ‘patriotic re-education.'”
“The traditional monastic system continued to decline as many top Buddhist teachers remained or died in exile in India or elsewhere, and some of those who returned from India were not allowed to teach or lead their institutions.“ In the issue of reincarnation system, the report said, “The government continued to exercise its authority over the approval of reincarnations of Tibetan Buddhist lamas and the supervision of their religious education. In addition, authorities closely supervised the education of many key young reincarnate lamas. In a deviation from traditional custom, government officials, rather than religious leaders, managed the selection of the reincarnate lamas’ religious and lay tutors in the TAR and some other Tibetan areas. According to state-run media reports, in April it was announced that the database of 1,311 ‘living buddhas’ that it deemed ‘authentic’ was nearly complete. The Dalai Lama was not on this list.”
Regarding the spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the report stated, “Multiple sources reported open veneration of the Dalai Lama, including the display of his photograph, remained prohibited in almost all areas. Local officials, many of whom considered the images to be symbols of opposition to the CCP, removed pictures of the Dalai Lama from monasteries and private homes during visits by senior officials. The government also banned pictures of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, whom the Dalai Lama and the overwhelming majority of Tibetan Buddhists recognize as the 11th Panchen Lama. Punishments in certain counties for displaying images of the Dalai Lama included closing of venues, expulsion from monasteries, and criminal prosecution.”
“The new TAR Party Secretary Wu Yingjie said in September that countering the Dalai Lama would be the top priority during his term in office and later stated publicly on November 15 that the ‘Dalai Clique’ was the biggest threat to the region, and that the Party must exert religious, political, and economic control over monasteries. Authorities in the TAR continued to prohibit the registration of children’s names that included parts of the Dalai Lama’s name, or names included on a list blessed by the Dalai Lama.”
“There were instances of authorities confiscating and canceling previously issued passports as a way of preventing Tibetans from participating in the 34th Kalachakra Initiation by the Dalai Lama in India. Event organizers in India estimated as many as 7,000 Chinese Tibetans were barred from attending the 34th Kalachakra, some of whom were detained en route to the pilgrimage after they had left China. Authorities warned participants or any who were involved would face jail terms from 10 days to five years.”
Regarding the legal framework, the report states, “The constitution of the People’s Republic of China states citizens enjoy ‘freedom of religious belief,’ but limits protections for religious practice to ‘normal religious activities’ without defining ‘normal.’ The constitution bans the state, public organizations, and individuals from compelling citizens to believe in, or not believe in, any religion. It says religion may not be used to disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system.
“Within the TAR, regulations issued assert state control over all aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, including religious venues, groups, and personnel. Through local regulations issued under the framework of the national-level Management Regulation of Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries, governments of the TAR and other Tibetan areas control the registration of monasteries, nunneries, and other Tibetan Buddhist religious centers. The regulations also give the government formal control over the building and management of religious structures and require monasteries to obtain official permission to hold large-scale religious events or gatherings.
“To establish places of worship, religious organizations must receive approval from the religious affairs department of the relevant local government both when the facility is proposed and again before services are held. Religious organizations must submit dozens of documents in order to register during one or both approval processes, including detailed management plans of their religious activities, exhaustive financial records, and personal information on all staff members.”
The report also included other ways in which Chinese authorities were attempting to control religious activity, saying, “In many areas, monks and nuns under the age of 18 were forced to leave their monasteries. In March Shiqu (Dzachuka) County in Ganzi (Kardze) Prefecture reported the government had removed 300 minors from local monasteries following a January 2015 provincial mandate to remove all monks and nuns under the age of 18 from monasteries and Buddhist schools to receive ‘patriotic education.’
“According to government policy, newly constructed government-subsidized housing units in many Tibetan areas were located near township and county government seats or along major roads, with no nearby monasteries where resettled villagers could worship. Traditionally, Tibetan villages were clustered around monasteries, which provided religious and other services to members of the community. Many Tibetans continued to view such measures as CCP and government efforts to dilute religious belief and weaken the ties between monasteries and communities.”
Regarding self immolation, “Although the number of self-immolations has continued to decline, as in previous years some Tibetans engaged in self-immolation as a protest against government policies. During the year, three Tibetans reportedly self-immolated, as compared to seven individuals in 2015, 11 in 2014, and 26 in 2013. Some experts attributed reports of the declining number of self-immolations to tighter controls by authorities. Local authorities prosecuted and imprisoned an unknown number of Tibetans whom authorities said had aided or instigated self-immolations, including family members and friends of self-immolators, according to press reports.
“In one case of self-immolation from the year, the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) reported that Tashi Rabten self-immolated in Maqu (Machu) County, Gansu Province, in December while calling for the return of the Dalai Lama. According to the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, county police detained Rabten’s wife, two children, and other relatives when they requested the return of his body following the incident. According to RFA, police then beat and tortured Rabten’s wife and daughters after they refused to sign a document saying Rabten had self-immolated because of domestic conflicts, rather than as a response to government policies. Rabten’s wife and children subsequently signed the document, and authorities released them.”
Highlighting the detainment of religious prisoners, the report detailed that, “Limited access to information about prisoners made it difficult to ascertain the exact number of Tibetan prisoners of religious conscience, determine the charges brought against them, or assess the extent and severity of abuses they suffered. The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s Political Prisoner Database included records of 649 Tibetan political prisoners who had been detained by October 11, and who were presumed to remain detained or imprisoned. Of the 649 political prisoners, 640 were detained on or after March 10, 2008, the start of a wave of political protests that spread across the Tibetan areas of China. Tibetan Buddhist monks, nuns, and teachers made up 277 cases, of the 640.
“There were reports of the arbitrary arrest and physical abuse of religious prisoners and prolonged detention of religious figures without criminal charges. In October authorities detained Lobsang Tsultrim, a monk from Kirti Monastery, for shouting slogans supportive of the Dalai Lama in public. It was reported that police severely beat Tsultrim; and at year’s end, he was awaiting trial at Wenchuan County Detention Center in Aba (Ngaba) Prefecture.
“In September family members located Lobsang Kelsang, a Kirti Monastery monk missing since his 2015 detention by police following a solitary protest while carrying an image of the Dalai Lama in Sichuan Province, in Deyang Prison after being sentenced to three years in a secret trial, according to RFA. RFA’s source said another Kirti monk named Adak was also secretly given a three year sentence in August.
“In June Lobsang Tsering, a monk from Kirti Monastery, was reportedly detained in Aba (Ngaba) County following a solo protest against Beijing’s rule in Tibet in which he wore a ceremonial scarf and carried a photo of the Dalai Lama, calling for his long life. He was reportedly beaten in custody.
“In December nine Tibetans were sentenced to prison terms of five to 14 years for their participation in the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday celebration the previous year. Some of them were monks from Kirti Monastery, and had previously been imprisoned and reportedly tortured.”
The State Department also chronicled reports of authorities targeting individuals in religious attire, including reports such as, “Sources continued to report security personnel targeted individuals in religious attire, particularly those from Naqu (Nagchu) and Changdu (Chamdo) Prefectures in the TAR and Tibetan areas outside of the TAR, for arbitrary questioning on the streets of Lhasa and other cities and towns. Many Tibetan monks and nuns reportedly chose to wear nonreligious garb to avoid such harassment when traveling outside of their monasteries and around the country.
“In some cases, authorities enforced special restrictions on Tibetans staying at hotels inside and outside of the TAR. Police regulations forbade some hotels and guesthouses in the TAR from accepting Tibetan guests, particularly monks and nuns, and required other hotels to notify police departments when Tibetan guests checked in, according to an RFA report and confirmed by several hotels.
Tibet was invaded by Communist China in 1949. Since that time, over 1.2 million out of only 6 million total Tibetans have been killed, over 6000 monasteries have been destroyed and acts of murder, rape, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment have been inflicted on the Tibetans inside Tibet. Beijing continues to call this a “peaceful liberation”.

New round of demolitions underway at Tibet’s Yachen Gar Buddhist Center
August 21, 2017
Radio Free Asia, August 15, 2017 – Authorities in western China’s Sichuan province have begun demolishing 2,000 residences of Tibetan clergy at the Yachen Gar Buddhist Center and are set to expel an equal number of monks and nuns from the complex by the end of the year, according to Tibetan sources in the region.
“Chinese authorities ordered the demolition of 2,000 houses of monks and nuns at Yachen Buddhist Center … [by the end of] this year,” one source told RFA’s Tibetan Service recently, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The demolition began on Aug. 8 and the work is said to be ongoing at Yachen Gar, while the same number of monks and nuns [2,000] are also to be expelled from the Buddhist center this year alone.”
Sources said that the monks and nuns had been ordered to tear down any homes built with wooden materials, and that demolition workers would be sent by the local authorities to raze any concrete structures in the area. One nun is said to have been injured in the demolition.
Yachen Gar, located in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) prefecture’s Palyul (Baiyu) county and founded in 1985, until recently housed an estimated 10,000 monks, nuns, and lay practitioners devoted to scriptural study and meditation.
In April, sources told RFA that authorities had demolished at least 200 tents set up by Tibetan pilgrims visiting Yachen Gar to receive teachings and accumulate merit, citing difficulties posed by the encampments to the orderly management of the complex.
Following the beginning of the demolitions last week, a senior lama at Yachen Gar issued an appeal to the monks and nuns at the complex to “exercise patience and tolerance.”
“About 2,000 houses will be demolished this year and around same number of monks and nuns will be asked to leave the complex—this is an order from the powerful authorities and cannot be resisted, just as falling boulders from a mountain cannot be stopped,” the lama said.
“Most important is to remain humble and adhere to proper conduct, and things may get better. Also, it is important for all monks and nuns to take care of their health,” he added.
“The monks and nuns should exercise patience and tolerance under the stress of the demolitions and expulsion orders—this is crucial.”
Another Tibetan from the region, who also asked to remain unnamed, told RFA that the new order had placed “tremendous stress and hardship” on Yachen Gar’s Buddhist community.
“The demolition will cause a great amount of stress, as many monks and nuns will lack accommodations and be forced to leave,” the source said.
“Yachen monks and nuns are solely focused on Buddhist practice and not involved in any form of politics,” he added.
Restricted access
Authorities have been restricting access to the sprawling complex and areas nearby, with foreign visitors drawing particular scrutiny from police, sources told RFA in earlier reports.
In April, following the demolition of the pilgrim tents, sources told RFA that Chinese surveillance and other tightened security measures at Yachen Gar had become growing causes of concern for the center’s resident monks and nuns, and that it was increasingly difficult for news about the complex to reach the outside world.
They said that while Yachen Gar has internet service, residents had been reluctant to speak out about what was happening at the complex for fear of retaliation by authorities.
Restrictions on Yachen Gar and the better-known Larung Gar complex in Sichuan’s Serthar (Seda) county are part of “an unfolding political strategy” aimed at controlling the influence and growth of these important centers for Tibetan Buddhist study and practice, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said in a March 13 report, “Shadow of Dust Across the Sun.”
“[Both centers] have drawn thousands of Chinese practitioners to study Buddhist ethics and receive spiritual teaching since their establishment, and have bridged Tibetan and Chinese communities,” ICT said in its report.
At the end of June, a senior abbot at Larung Gar said that Chinese authorities had destroyed 4,725 monastic dwellings over the course of a year at the complex, with a total of more than 7,000 demolished since efforts to reduce the number of monks and nuns living at the sprawling center began in 2001.
The abbot said that more than 4,828 monks and nuns had also been expelled since 2016, with many forced back to their hometowns and deprived of opportunities to pursue religious studies.
Many thousands of Tibetans and Han Chinese once studied at Larung Gar Academy, 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.
Reported by Kunsang Tenzin and Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

At UNESCO, India and China battle over Tibetan medicine
August 21, 2017
By Divya A
Indian Express, August 18, 2017 – As Indian and Chinese troops face off at Doklam on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, their countries are locked in another, lesser known but longer running, argument — this too involves Tibet, but is playing out in a theatre far away.
In April this year, The Indian Express reported that India had sent Sowa-Rigpa, the Tibetan system of medicine, as its official entry for UNESCO’s prestigious Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The problem was Beijing, too, had sent a similar entry, claiming Sowa-Rigpa as its own.
Chinese experts attacked India for staking claim to the legacy of ancient Tibetan medicine. “The Tibetan medicine system originated in Tibet and has developed on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in northwest and southwest China,” Qin Yongzhang, an ethnologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted as saying by the state-run Global Times.
The Indian entry, titled “Sowa-Rigpa, knowledge of healing or science of healing”, was submitted in March. The Chinese dossier, “Lum medicinal bathing of Sowa Rigpa, knowledge and practices concerning life, health and illness prevention and treatment among the Tibetan people in China”, had been submitted a few years earlier.
Both entries will come up for consideration in the UNESCO list in 2018.
Qin said India had nominated Sowa-Rigpa to enhance its soft power, gain confidence and benefit financially, but “the truth is that Tibetan medicine not only originated but has developed in China”. Tibetans in exile in India may help in the practice and spread of Sowa-Rigpa, and claim that it has been developed in India, Qin was quoted as saying.
In its defence, the Ministry of Culture has said India had been preparing the nomination dossier for Sowa-Rigpa “for many years”. Top levels of government had got involved in the attempt to speed up India’s bid ahead of the 2018 session of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, sources said.
So, what is Sowa-Rigpa?
Commonly known as the Amchi system of medicine, it is believed to have originated in the 3rd century BC, and is one of the world’s oldest and best documented medical traditions. The heart of the tradition is in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, but it is also practised in Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Darjeeling, Lahaul & Spiti and Ladakh. Outside India, Sowa-Rigpa is practised in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, parts of China, and Nepal.
The Indian entry is supported by a detailed letter of recommendation written by Geshe Ngawang Samten, vice-chancellor of the Central University of Tibetan Studies in Sarnath near Varanasi. “Even though Sowa-Rigpa originated in Tibet, it is a part of the Indian culture since it is being practised here for more than a millennium,” Prof Samten has written. “Also, it has a lot of influences of Ayurveda.”
China’s dossier, Samten says, apparently calls Sowa Rigpa a “Tibetan-Chinese” medical system. “There is no nomenclature as ‘Tibetan-Chinese’, either it’s Tibetan or it’s Chinese,” he adds. The original Tibetan Institute of Sowa-Rigpa is in Lhasa, Tibet; the government-in-exile “reopened” it in Dharamsala, and teaches courses informally.
Sowa-Rigpa is under the purview of the AYUSH Ministry. To highlight the Indianness of Sowa-Rigpa, the AYUSH website says, “The majority of theory and practice of Sowa-Rigpa is similar to Ayurveda. The first Ayurvedic influence came to Tibet during 3rd century AD but it became popular only after 7th century with the approach of Buddhism to Tibet. Thereafter, this trend of exportation of Indian medical literature, along with Buddhism and other Indian art and sciences were continued till the early 19th century.”

Opinion: China must change its flawed environmental policy in Tibet
August 14, 2017
By Lobsang Sangay
The Guardian, August 7, 2017 – s Australia continues to battle a water crisis and the challenges facing the world’s driest inhabited continent, Tibet on the other hand is Asia’s water tower, its principal rainmaker and the largest source of fresh water, feeding over a billion lives in Asia including China.
At an average elevation of 4,000 meters above sea level and with an area of 2.5m sq km, Tibet is the world’s highest and largest plateau. It’s nearly two-third the size of the European continent. If Tibet were still a sovereign nation it would be the world’s tenth largest. It has the largest concentration of the world’s tallest mountains and is called the earth’s third pole because it has the largest reservoir of glacial ice after the two poles. Tibet is also a treasure trove of minerals, oil and natural gas reserves and a leading producer of lithium in China.
The Chinese scientists have over the years been proposing an increase in nature reserves across Tibet considering the fragile ecosystem on the plateau. In April this year China unveiled its grand plans on turning the entire stretch of Tibet into a national park.
The Chinese government has been declaring more and more national parks and nature reserves across Tibet in recent years, and this is a welcome gesture. The Chinese government must take into consideration the fragility and delicate nature of Tibet’s environment and reign in the factors that contribute to environmental crises in Tibet: rapid urbanisation, transfer of Chinese population into Tibet, unchecked mining on Tibet’s sacred mountains, and damming of Tibet’s rivers to facilitate hydro power projects.
In light of such robust projects, Tibetans are not only deprived of their traditional way of living, but are made peripheral beneficiaries of the projects.
The real beneficiaries are the Chinese officials who pocket their share of the gain, the Chinese companies and the Chinese employers benefitting from the economic opportunities.
We are not against Chinese developmental projects in Tibet per se, but we propose that the real beneficiaries of any development must be Tibetans in Tibet. Any projects that China undertake must be environmentally sustainable, culturally sensitive and economically beneficially to local Tibetans.
China’s rolling of its strategic and economic imperatives in Tibet has greater implications on the larger environmental consequences caused by climate change.
Today, the Chinese government’s flawed environmental and developmental policies have turned this resource-rich plateau and fragile ecosystem into a hub of its mining and dam building activities. This not only changes the water map of Asia for the worse but also contributes to an environmental crisis, which in turn contributes to climate change across Asia. The rising temperatures on the roof of the world make Tibet both a driver and amplifier of global warming.
2016 has been a year of natural disasters: a glacial avalanche in Aru in the Ngari region (Western Tibet), and mud floods and a landslide in Amdo (eastern Tibet). Between June and July 2017 alone, four distinct cases of floods were reported in Kham (south east region of Tibet). These are the cumulative effect of climate change.
More cases of natural disasters are imminent. The Chinese government must consider these impending threats and accordingly orient its urban development project towards mitigating the increasing threats posed by climate change.
China has escalated military control over Tibetan borders, expanded mining based on the rich resources of the Tibetan plateau in order to fuel China’s economic development and has dramatically expanded infrastructure with a strategic road and rail network. It seeks to raise the productivity of the industrial cities of Xi’an, Chongqing and Chengdu at the foot of the Tibetan plateau and to address the progressive scarcity of water resources in the North and North-East of China with water sourced in Tibet.
Tibet is facing two critical issues: Its political and environmental future. Of the two, the latter is a bigger issue given the implications for Asia and the rest of the world.
Dalai Lama says strong action on climate change is a human responsibility.
Tibet symbolises the three crises that confront Asia today; a natural resources crisis, an environmental and a climate crisis. These three are interlinked and potentially pose a threat to the ecological wellbeing and climate security not just of Asia but even of Europe, North America and Australia. According to leading scientists, the recent heat waves in Europe are linked to loss of ice on the Tibetan plateau. A team led by Hai Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Environment Canada in Quebec found that the greater snow-cover in Tibet, the warmer the winter in Canada.
Such formidable scenarios demand greater global attention and a forward-looking leadership to assuage the larger affects of an environmental crisis befalling Tibet. The world leaders must act prudently and not allow political constrains to dwarf redressal mechanism at institutional level to an impending global environmental crisis.
Veerabhadran Ramanathan from the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego has rightly said that “our understanding of global climate change would be incomplete without taking into consideration what’s happening to the Tibetan plateau.”
Tibet’s environment impinges on regional and global security. The global efforts to reign in China’s policies in Tibet underpinning an oversight of the importance of Tibet’s environment and sensitivity over its fragile ecosystem, must be robust. In the age of climate change the future of Asia and by extension that of our planet Earth hinges on the developments in Tibet, the roof of the world.

India raises Tibet concerns with China
July 31, 2017
Press Trust of India, July 28, 2017 – There is no quid pro quo with China on the issue of “sufferings” of the Tibetan people and stapled visas being given to Arunachal Pradesh residents by Beijing, government said on Thursday.
There is no quid pro quo with China on the two issues, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told the Rajya Sabha replying to questions on the two issues.
Responding to supplementaries on the issue of stapled visa to Arunachal residents by China, she said “the issue has been raised in every bilateral meeting at various levels, be it at my level or that of the Prime Minister. The issue has been raised by us.”
Asked about India’s stand on Tibet, she said “we used to earlier talk of One China policy, but we used to say that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India. And when we say that, we want that China should also recognise this. Our policy has been made very clear.”
On the issue of whether India remained a mute spectator towards the alleged atrocities in Tibet, the Minister said “We are not sitting as a mute spectator. Whenever there are differences, we raise them.”
She said the Dalai Lama wanted to visit Tawang and “we allowed him to do so”. This is not the first time but the fifth or sixth time that he is visiting that place.
“Whatever issue that is there that goes against India’s interest, we lodge our protest,” Ms Swaraj said.
To a question, she said there was no policy under which Chinese companies are denied security permission. She also objected to a member raising the issue of a particular Chinese company in the House.
She said that denial of security permission to one particular company cannot determine the relations between the two countries. She said it done under a process and if a Japanese or a Korean company applied, they get it first.
To another question on the cancellation of a visit of Indian journalists to Tibet by China, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar said there is no official information from China about it.
He said Indian journalists are independent and take their decisions independently and it was between them and the Chinese authorities about the visit to Tibet.
“As far as the visit being cancelled, officially we don’t have any information. It is between the journalists and the host country,” he said.
Mr Akbar said in 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Xi Jinping in Astana, a close development partnership issue was raised and both countries decided to increase people-to-people and media contacts and decided to do everything to bring the two countries together.
“We will continue to make such efforts and take them forward,” he said, adding that a high-level media forum has been established to further strengthen media exchanges. The last meeting of this media forum was held in Beijing in February 2015.
“Government has no details of such a visit because the government was not approached by the host agency or the journalists for assistance,” he said in a written reply.

Tibetan man self-immolates in India, 2nd this month
July 31, 2017
By Lalit Mohan
Tribune News Service, July 29, 2017 – Charred remains of an unidentified Tibetan youth were found in a forest below the Dalai Lama temple at Mcleodganj on Saturday causing quite a stir in the area.
While many Tibetans suspected that it could be another act of self-immolation, police say anything in the matter could only be said after post-mortem.
Sources said the body was noticed by a Tibetan passerby at about 4 pm. He told Tibetan settlement officials that the body of a Tibetan was on fire in a forest, who further informed police.
As the word spread a large number of residents of Mcleodganj started gathering at the spot. Many Tibetan websites cast apprehensions that this could be another self-immolation by a Tibetan.
In last two years more than 150 Tibetans have committed self-immolation to protest against the Chinese rule in Tibet. While most of them have committed self-immolation inside Tibet, two have taken the extreme step in India.
Sources added that the place where charred remains of the youth have been recovered is used by Tibetans to invoke the deities through incense ceremonies.
The DSP (Headquarters) who was present at the spot said a forensic team has been called to examine the body and the spot where it was found.
A Tibetan youth who had committed self-immolation in Varanasi two weeks ago was cremated in Mcleodganj by the Tibetan Youth Congress.
Another Tibetan youth who had committed self-immolation in Delhi was also cremated in Mcleodganj.

China closes brick factory created to support Tibetan monastery
July 17, 2017
Radio Free Asia, July 14, 2017 – Authorities in northwestern China’s Qinghai province have closed two facilities set up to provide income for a local Tibetan monastery, calling the move part of a drive to improve the local environment, Tibetan sources say.
The two facilities, one a brick works and the other a sand-sifting plant, had been operated by the Ragya monastery in Qinghai’s Golog (in Chinese, Guoluo) prefecture for many years, a Tibetan living in South India told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“But recently, Chinese authorities arrived to shut them down,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity and citing contacts in Golog.
“They claim that they are doing this so that they can plant trees and clean up the environment in the area, but they are creating a real nuisance and disturbance with this order,” he said.
“The sand plant and brick works that they closed were the main source of income for Ragya monastery,” he added.
Local authorities are meanwhile building bridges and highways nearby “in a tight-lipped scheme to mine natural resources in the area,” RFA’s source said, adding that excavations on nearby Machen mountain are continuing without a break.
“The Chinese mining on Machen mountain has not stopped, and the welfare of the Tibetan people is being completely ignored,” he said.
Mining operations in Tibetan regions 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.
In August 2015, security forces in Qinghai attacked and beat a group of elderly Tibetan villagers and women who were blocking construction of a dam, injuring an unknown number and later detaining several, sources said in earlier reports.
The group had sought since the beginning of the year to halt the work near Seching village in the Yadzi (Xunhua) Salar Autonomous County amid concerns it could be linked to mining operations in the area, an area resident told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Tibetan student self-immolates in India
July 17, 2017
Al Jazeera, July 16, 2017 – A Tibetan student has self-immolated in India after shouting “freedom”, police said on Saturday, injuring himself critically.
Tenzin Choeying set himself on fire on Friday at the Central University for Tibetan Studies in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh state.
Self-immolation has regularly been used as a protest against China’s actions in Tibet. But Indian police said they are also investigating the 20-year-old’s recent exam failures as being a possible cause for his actions.
The International Campaign for Tibet identified the student as Tenzin Choeying. It quoted Chime Namgyal, head of the Tibetan Youth Congress activist group in Varanasi, as saying Choeying shouted “Victory to Tibet”.
Tenzin Tsundue, who visited Choeying at the hospital in Varanasi, told Al Jazeera that the patient is expected to survive.
“He is stable, the next five days are crucial, the doctor says,” he wrote in a Whatsapp message to Al Jazeera.
“My concern, as his brother, is to arrange for him the best treatment, and get him back to life.”
Tsundue also sent to Al Jazeera a note, which he said Choeying wrote before the incident.
In it, Choeying wrote in English, “Please don’t cry. Tell everyone that my body is for Tibet.”
Police said they were still investigating and will take statements from Choeying and his family. “The boy is recovering at the hospital. He can speak but has around 50 percent burns,” Sanjay Tripathi, a Varanasi police spokesman, told AFP news agency.
Religious repression accusations
China says its troops “liberated” Tibet in 1951, but many Tibetans accuse the government of religious repression and eroding their culture.
China rejects the accusations and blames the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader who lives in exile in the Indian hill town of Dharamshala, of inciting self-immolations in a bid to split Tibet from the rest of the nation.
A young farmer self-immolated in southwest China in March, the first Tibetan to set himself on fire in 2017.
The Tibetan government-in-exile in India said he was the 146th Tibetan to self-immolate since 2009. Choeying is the not the first Tibetan to set himself on fire in India. A Tibetan exile set himself alight and died two days later in New Delhi in 2012.

Under pressure from China, Botswana dumps the Dalai Lama
July 17, 2017
By Mpho Tebele
The Southern Times, July 17, 2017 – In what is seen as fearing a backlash from China, Botswana has distanced itself from the planned visit by exiled Tibet spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
In a statement, government spokesperson, Dr Jeff Ramsay said that in light of ongoing domestic and international media reports, the government of Botswana has no official involvement in a three-day conference entitled “Botho/Ubuntu: A Dialogue with the Dalai Lama Spirituality, Science and Humanity.” The event is scheduled for 17-19 August 2017.
Ramsay said that contrary to information released by the event’s apparent organisers “Mind and Life Institute,” President Khama “shall not be delivering the opening address at the event; neither shall he be participating in the said conference in any other way.”
“We further wish to affirm that, contrary to speculation in some quarters, the Government of Botswana will not be accommodating or otherwise extending official hospitality to Lhamo Thondup, otherwise known as Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama, should he visit our country,” read Ramsay’s statement.
“Finally we wish to hereby affirm, again contrary to information circulated by the ‘Mind and Life Institute,’ that the Botswana Government’s Chief of Protocol is not acting as a contact person for the event.”
Asked if it made a u-turn fearing a backlash from China, the Botswana government said consistent with the United Nations, Botswana like virtually all jurisdictions in the world, upholds the one-China principle in its official relations with the People’s Republic of China.
In a rare visit to Africa, the Dalai Lama is set for a three –day sojourn in Botswana in August at the invitation of a non-profit group called Mind and Dialogue in Botswana.
South Africa has previously denied the Dalai Lama visa for fear angering China which hold Tibet to be part of its sovereign territory.
The Dalai Lama seeks autonomy for Tibet but the Chinese government insists it is already autonomous and accuses him of seeking independence.
Immigration and Gender Affairs Minister Edwin Batshu has since confirmed that government has approved a visa for the Dalai Lama. A member of Ntlo Ya Dikgosi (House of Chiefs) recently expressed a worry that the visit by the Dalai Lama has already shown that that it has caused some diplomatic tension between Gaborone and Beijing.
According to The Patriot newspaper, as a warning shot, Chinese embassy in Gaborone has suspended all the scholarship and workshops that they used to sponsor government officials to China.
The paper reports that Beijing has instructed its embassy in Gaborone to suspend sponsorship seminars adding that most of the training were supposed to start in July and none of those that were supposed to travel to China have been called. The Chinese embassy declined to discuss the issue.
The only country that has stood against China over the Dalai Lama is India which has ignored all the appeals by Beijing not to honour the Dalai Lama. Following the Dalai Lama’s visit to India’s north eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, China slammed India for facilitating his visit to the area saying the visit has severely damaged the two countries relations. While India has stated that his visit to the area was purely religious in nature and urged
China not to create artificial controversy over the visit, it also urged Beijing not to interfere in India’s internal affairs.
In May this, the Chinese government also criticised the USA for sending a bipartisan delegation of American lawmakers to India to visit the exiled spiritual leader.
China pursues an aggressive One-China policy through which it wants the world to accept that there is only one China and no independent states of Taiwan and Tibet. On account of advocating for an independent Tibet, China sees the Dalai Lama as a separatist.
China regularly deploys its economic and political muscle to pressure governments to limit contact with the Dalai Lama.

India-China Standoff in High Himalayas Pulls In Tiny Bhutan

https://www.voanews.com/a/india-china-standoff-in-high-himalayas-pulls-in-tiny-bhutan/3942619.html
A tense standoff between India and China in the high Himalayas is being played out not on the disputed borders between the two Asian giants, but on a plateau claimed by China and Bhutan. Many analysts say the face off is also a play for power in the tiny, strategically located country, which is India’s closest ally in South Asia, but where Beijing wants to increase its presence. Indian troops obstructed a Chinese road-building project at Doklam Plateau around mid-June. The area also known as “Chicken’s Neck” is hugely strategic for India because it connects the country’s mainland to its northeastern region. New Delhi cites its treaties with Bhutan, with which it has close military and economic ties, for keeping its soldiers in the area despite strident calls by Beijing to vacate the mountain region. As the standoff drags on, there are fears in New Delhi that Beijing is also testing its ties with Bhutan, the tiny nation that has made gross national happiness its mantra, but where worries are growing about a big power conflict on its doorstep. Analysts point out that China wants to wean Bhutan away from India and expand ties with a country with which it has no diplomatic ties. “At a strategic level, China would like to separate India from Bhutan, they would like to open up Bhutan to their greater influence, that goes without saying,” said Manoj Joshi, a strategic affairs analyst at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.
One small move at a time
According to political analysts, it is not the first time the Chinese have built a road in a disputed area in Bhutan, which has a disputed border with China at several places in the high Himalayas. “They have done the same in other areas, built roads in mountains and valleys and then claimed it was their territory during border negotiations,” said a Bhutanese political analyst who did not want to be identified. “It has been a hot button issue here, and has been repeatedly debated in parliament.” These “encroachments” are seen as efforts by Beijing to muscle into Bhutan in the same manner as it has done in South China Sea. Analysts call it a “salami slicing” tactic. But Bhutan, which worries about being drawn into the rivalry between the two large neighbors, has maintained a studied silence on the latest dispute, except to issue one demarche calling on Beijing to restore the status quo in the area. “Bhutan has done well, so far, to avoid both the fire from the Dragon on our heads and also the Elephant’s tusks in our soft underbelly. We must keep it this way,” Bhutanese journalist Tenzing Lamsang wrote for The Wire. Despite some calls in Bhutan to settle its border with China without worrying about Indian interests, political analysts say public opinion largely favors New Delhi’s firm stand on the Doklam plateau.
Influence at stake
While keeping the Chinese out of the strategic plateau is India’s immediate concern, there is also concern about maintaining its influence in Bhutan, which is a buffer between China and India. India has watched warily as Beijing has steadily increased its presence in its neighborhood in recent years as countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have also been increasingly drawn into the Chinese sphere of influence by the promise of massive investments in roads, ports and other infrastructure. In India there are concerns that the same should not happen in Bhutan, its most steadfast ally. Saying the Chinese have been applying pressure on the Bhutanese border, analyst Manoj Joshi said. “If Bhutan were to go the way of say Nepal, where Indian influence is now questioned, it would make a difference, that buffer would vanish.” India’s foreign secretary S. Jaishankar this week expressed confidence that India and China have the maturity to handle their latest dispute and it will be handled diplomatically. “I see no reason why, when having handled so many situations in the past, we would not be able to handle it,” he said. But while in the past such border standoffs have been resolved quickly, this time around there are no signs the issue is getting resolved, nearly a month after it erupted.