Three Tibetans Detained for Refusing to Fly the Chinese Communist Flag at Home

Chinese authorities in Tibet have detained three villagers for refusing to fly the Chinese national flag from their homes, as local officials continue to press a campaign forcing displays of loyalty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Video purports to show Tibetan nun self-immolating

BEIJING (AFP) — Dramatic video footage that purportedly captures the moment a Tibetan Buddhist nun burned herself to death in southwest China has emerged after it was smuggled out and given to a campaign group.

The video, which AFP cannot independently verify, was posted online by Students for a Free Tibet and shows a figure being engulfed in flames in the middle of a street before collapsing to the ground.

The group says the figure is Palden Choetso, a 35-year-old Buddhist nun who self-immolated on November 3 in a Tibetan-inhabited town in Sichuan province.

The Tibetans shown in the footage had “risked everything” to smuggle it out of China, said Tenzin Jigdal, programme director of Students for a Free Tibet, which has offices in New York and Dharamshala, the Indian town that is home to the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Dalai Lama accuses China of ‘cultural genocide’

The Dalai Lama has blamed the Chinese government’s policy of “cultural genocide” in his native Tibet for a wave of self-immolations that has struck restive Tibetan areas of western China this year.

At least 11 Tibetans, all of them Buddhist nuns, monks or former monks, have set themselves on fire since March to protest against Chinese rule and religious repression, according to human rights and exile groups.

The Chinese government has blamed the Dalai Lama for encouraging the self-immolations and says he and his “clique” are engaged in “disguised terrorism” and “pursuing separatism by harming people”.

At a press conference in Tokyo on Monday, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said Beijing’s hardline policy towards any hint of dissent among Tibetans was the real cause of the demonstrations.

11th Tibetan Buddhist Self-Immolates in Southwestern China

China says a Tibetan nun has died after setting herself on fire in southwestern China. It was the 11th such self-immolation protest this year involving Buddhist monks and nuns in the restive region.

Palden Chetso, 35, died Thursday in Sichuan province. A witness told VOA’s Tibetan service he found the nun drenched in gasoline on a local roadway moments before she set herself ablaze. She said she was prepared to sacrifice for greater freedoms and the return of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Eight Buddhist monks and two nuns have self-immolated since a young protesting monk died after setting himself on fire in March at the flashpoint Kirti monastery. That death sparked months of protests by monks and nuns and triggered a major Chinese crackdown on area monasteries that included the arrests and disappearances of hundreds of monks.

China: Account for “Disappeared” Uighurs

(New York) – The Chinese government should account for a group of 20 ethnic Uighurs deported from Cambodia one year ago, Human Rights Watch said today. Over the past year, the Chinese government has consistently refused to provide information about the group’s status and well-being.

Tension in Northern China about Mongolia activist’s imminent release, supporters harassed

Reporters Without Borders, Nov. 25, 2010 –

Reporters Without Borders urges the Chinese authorities not to delay the release of Mongol journalist and human rights activist Hada, who will complete a 15-year jail sentence in Inner Mongolia on 10 December. Their behaviour towards his supporters indicates a degree of nervousness about the prospect of his imminent release.

“We ask the authorities to allow Hada to be reunited with his family after his release,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We also urge them to stop all forms of surveillance of those who defend Mongol ethnic minority rights peacefully online.”

China opened fire on Tibetan demonstrators in at least four separate incidents, many people Killed in 2008 protest: Human Rights Watch Report

Human Rights Watch, July 21, 2010 –

(New York) – Eyewitness accounts confirm that Chinese security forces used disproportionate force and acted with deliberate brutality during and after unprecedented Tibetan protests beginning on March 10, 2008, Human Rights Watch said in a new report  released today. Many violations continue today, including disappearances, wrongful convictions and imprisonment, persecution of families, and the targeting of Tibetans suspected of sympathizing with the protest movement.

The 73-page report, “‘I Saw It with My Own Eyes’: Abuses by Security Forces in Tibet, 2008-2010,” is based on more than 200 interviews with Tibetan refugees and visitors conducted immediately after they left China, as well as fresh, not previously reported, official Chinese sources. The report details, through eyewitness testimonies, a broad range of abuses committed by security forces both during and after protest incidents, including using disproportionate force in breaking up protests, proceeding to large-scale arbitrary arrests, brutalizing detainees, and torturing suspects in custody.

“Dozens of eyewitness testimonies and the government’s own sources show clearly the official willingness to use lethal force against unarmed protestors,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “This report decisively refutes the Chinese government’s claim that it handled the protests in line with international standards and domestic laws.”

The report also suggests that contrary to government claims, Chinese security forces opened fire indiscriminately on demonstrators in at least four separate incidents, including in one area of downtown Lhasa on March 14.

In order to avoid external or independent scrutiny of the security operations, the Chinese authorities effectively locked down the entire Tibetan plateau and dispatched massive numbers of troops across all Tibetan-inhabited areas. It expelled journalists and foreign observers, restricted travel to and within the region, cut or monitored telecommunications and internet, and arrested anyone suspected of reporting on the crackdown. The government has rejected all calls for independent investigations into the protests, including those from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN special rapporteurs…….(more details from Human Rights Watch: China: Witnesses Lift Veil on Abuses by Security Forces in Tibet)

Testimonies from “‘I Saw It with My Own Eyes’: Abuses by Security Forces in Tibet, 2008-2010”:

“They were firing straight at people. They were coming from the direction of Jiangsu Lu firing at any Tibetans they saw, and many people had been killed.”
– Pema Lhakyi (not her real name,) a 24-year -old Lhasa resident.

“She was shot by a single bullet in the head. Local people managed to take her body home to the village, which is about five kilometers from Tongkor monastery.”
– Sonam Tenzin (not his real name), a 27-year-old monk from Tongkor monastery.

“At first, the soldiers fired in front of the crowd a few times to scare them, but the crowd thought they would not dare to actually fire and continued crowding inside the compound. At that point, the soldiers started to fire.”
– Tenpa Trinle (not his real name), a 26-year-old monk from Seda county.

“The first thing I saw was a lot of soldiers and police beating the crowd with electric batons. Groups of four or five soldiers were arresting crowd members one by one and putting them in a truck.”
– Dorje Tso (not his real name) 55-year-old resident from Tongren.

(more details from Human Rights Watch: China: Witnesses Lift Veil on Abuses by Security Forces in Tibet)

Jailed Tibetan environmentalist tortured by China police during detention since January

The Guardian, UK, June 22, 2010 –

A jailed Tibetan environmentalist used the opening of his trial today to accuse Chinese captors of beatings, sleep deprivation and other maltreatment, his wife told reporters.

Karma Samdrup – a prominent businessman and award-winning conservationist – issued a statement in court detailing the brutal interrogation methods, including drugs that made his ears bleed, used on him since his detention on 3 January.

“If not for his voice, I would not have recognised him,” his wife Zhenga Cuomao told the Associated Press.

She said Samdrup appeared gaunt when he appeared at the Yangqi county courthouse in Xinjiang, the mountainous province neighbouring Tibet.

Prosecutor Kuang Ying denied violence had been used against Samdrup, who founded the Three Rivers Environmental Protection group and pushed for conservation of the source region for the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang (Mekong) rivers.

The wealthy Tibetan art collector is an unlikely political prisoner. His group has won several awards for its work, including the Earth Prize, which is jointly administered by Friends of the Earth Hong Kong and the Ford motor company.

In 2006, he was named philanthropist of the year by state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) for “creating harmony between men and nature”.

He was arrested earlier this year and accused of robbing graves and stealing cultural artefacts. Supporters say these were old, trumped-up charges that were dismissed by police 12 years ago. If convicted, the maximum penalty is death or life in prison, though his lawyer says a more lenient sentence is likely.

His trial has been delayed for several weeks amid claims that he is being unfairly punished for lobbying the authorities for the release of his two brothers.

His siblings, Rinchen Samdrup and Jigme Namgyal, were arrested last August after their separate environmental protection group – Voluntary Environmental Protection Association of Kham Anchung Senggenamzong – sought to expose officials who hunted endangered animals. Namgyal is serving a 21-month re-education-through-labour sentence for “harming national security.”…… (The Guardian)

China police detain 13 Uyghur Flood Rescuers

Radio Free Asia, 2010-06-18 –

HONG KONG— Authorities near the Silk Road city of Kashgar have detained around a dozen ethnic Uyghurs after they organized themselves to help local residents hit by huge rainstorms and massive flash flooding, overseas groups and officials said.

“We are all engaged in flood relief work,” said a police officer who answered the phone at Yengisar [in Chinese, Yingjisha] county’s Uchar [in Chinese, Wuqia] police station in the Kashgar region of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

He said local officials had already implemented flood prevention measures in case the floods came back.

But he declined to comment on the reported detentions of 13 Uyghurs for disturbing public order.

“I can’t answer that question,” the officer said.

“Can you get your information from the Internet—we are very busy here,” he said.

An employee who answered the phone at the Wuqia village credit union said the flooding had been going on for three days, and was still causing disruption for local residents, some of whom had been made homeless.

“There was some very heavy rain here,” she said.

“And 330 people had their homes damaged or destroyed.”

Flash flooding

“We can lend them up to a maximum of 20,000 yuan. Some people have asked for 5,000 yuan, so we have made some loans of 5,000 yuan.”

According to official media, heavy flash flooding in Yengisar county caused flooding in villages No. 3, 4, 5, and 6 lasting longer than three hours in a region that had no recorded floods for at least a century, knocking out water supplies, communications, and transportation links.

A large number of houses collapsed, reports said.

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said 13 Uyghur residents had been detained on public order charges after local officials said their assistance efforts had too strong a religious flavor.

“They were detained by the local public security department, and the local authorities said they were disturbing public order,” Raxit said.

“The people were organizing themselves to help people out after the floods, and relaying information of the flood situation everywhere. The government said they were disturbing the peace.”

He said residents had begun to organize themselves in the face of a slow response to the disaster from local officials……(more details from Radio Free Asia)

Uyghur language school Shuts Down in Pakistan under pressure from Chinese Embassy

Radio Free Asia, May 20, 2010 –

HONG KONG— A Uyghur language school in northern Pakistan has been shuttered following orders from authorities acting on pressure from Beijing, according to school officials.

The Omer Uyghur Language School in Rawalpindi, in the Majha region of Punjab province, closed its doors in April after Chinese Embassy officials spoke with the Pakistani government and the school’s landlord, accusing school officials of maintaining ties with a Uyghur independence group.

The school had also faced fierce competition from a new institute established by the Chinese Embassy called the Big Montessori School—built directly in front of the Omer Uyghur Language School and opened for classes on April 7, 2010, Omer school officials said.

Omer Khan, 35, who co-founded the Omer Uyghur Language School with his brother Akbar in March 2009, said he is trying to convince the Pakistani government to allow him to reopen.

His brother, Akbar, said the Uyghur community “simply wants a place to learn the Uyghur language and has no political motivations.”

The Big Montessori School has yet to conduct classes in the Uyghur language, despite a pledge from Chinese officials that it would do so, in addition to providing all fees for attendance and school materials.

Classes are currently conducted in Urdu and English, according to local members of the Uyghur community.

Unlikely leader

A former employee of the Omer Uyghur Language School, who asked not to be named, said the Chinese Embassy had also distributed 5 million Pakistan rupees (U.S. $60,000) to the Pakistan Chinese Uyghur community in Rawalpindi, which it said was to be used for the new school it had established.

“The Chinese government spending money on a new school is only going to create problems for the Uyghur community here. They just want to start trouble by saying there are links between our school and the World Uyghur Congress,” the employee said, referring to the Munich-based independence group.

“The new school is not teaching Uyghur. I’m very disappointed because the Omer School has been shut down and the new school was built directly in front of the former school,” he said.

Raza Han, president of the Big Montessori School, has served as a liaison between the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan and the Pakistan Chinese Uyghur community in Rawalpindi, of which he also serves as president.

When contacted by telephone in Uyghur for comment, Raza Han seemed unable to communicate clearly.

“I am not a Uyghur,” Raza Han stuttered, before refusing to answer further questions.

The former employee at the Omer School said he could not understand why Raza Han had been put in charge of the Uyghur community, or of the school that was meant to provide the community with language and cultural classes.

“How can Raza Han claim to be the head of the Chinese Uyghur community in Rawalpindi if he is not even a Uyghur?” he asked……. (more details from Radio Free Asia)

China must reveal fate of Uighur asylum-seekers

Amnesty International, 23 December 2009 –

Amnesty International has called on the Chinese authorities to reveal the whereabouts of 20 ethnic Uighur asylum-seekers who were forcibly deported from Cambodia to China on 19 December

The group, which includes two very young children, may be at risk of torture or even execution since their forcible deportation at the request of the Chinese government.

Since 2001, Amnesty International has documented cases in which Uighur asylum seekers or refugees who were forcibly returned to China were detained, reportedly tortured and in some cases sentenced to death and executed.

“The 20 should either be charged with recognizably criminal offences or released,” said Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director Sam Zarifi in a letter to the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi Buzhang.

“Their trials should meet international fair trial standards, and under no circumstances should the death penalty be imposed.

“Our concerns are heightened by the fact that the Chinese authorities have already executed nine people and sentenced eight others to death in relation to the July 2009 unrest in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region,” said Sam Zarifi.

Amnesty International has also urged the Chinese government to provide the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) with immediate access to the 20 individuals to monitor their well-being.

Name list of the deported Uighur asylum-seekers, from Amnesty International

China’s pre-emptive response to Obama’s free flow of information comments?

Reporters Without Borders, 16 November 2009 –

As US President Barack Obama used the Shanghai leg of his China visit to call for an end to online censorship, it emerged that a Chinese court has sentenced Tibetan writer and photographer Kunga Tseyang to five years in prison on various charges including posting articles on the Internet. Two days before, literary website editor Kunchok Tsephel has meanwhile been sentenced to 15 years in prison on a charge of “divulging state secrets”.

“Was this the Chinese government’s pre-emptive response to the US president’s very clear defence of the free flow of information,” Reporters Without Borders asked. “Either way, we hope the central government will overturn such heavy prison sentences, which two Tibetan writers have been given just for expressing their views. We deplore the increased repression since the major protests in Tibet in March 2008.”

Reporters Without Borders has learned that Tseyang, who is also know by the pen-name Gangnyi (Snow Sun), was given the five-year sentence by a court in the western province of Gansu on 14 November 2009 after being found guilty of writing “separatist” articles, posting them online and having contact with a Buddhist monk based in India. The authorities objected in particular to his posting articles on the website Zindris……. (more details from Reporters Without Borders)

Hasty executions in China highlight unfair Xinjiang trials

Amnesty International, 10 November 2009-

Chinese authorities must ensure all individuals charged with offences during the July riots in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) receive a fair trail and do not face the death penalty, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

The China Daily reported on Tuesday that the authorities prosecuted another 20 suspects on Monday, for offences ranging from murder, arson and robbery linked to the riots.

The trial follows the execution of eight Uighurs and one Han Chinese individual, announced by the authorities on Monday. The announcement did not say when the nine were executed but reported that it was after the Supreme People’s Court reviewed and approved the sentences.

“In hastily executing these individuals after unfair trials, the Chinese authorities are perpetuating some of the very injustices that helped trigger the outburst of violence in the first place,” said Roseann Rife, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific programme.

The nine were among 21 individuals tried and sentenced in October in relation to the July unrest. Another three received suspended death sentences while the rest were sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Their trials lasted less than a day. Their sentences were upheld by the XUAR Higher People’s Court on 30 October.

Amnesty International said it believes that statements made by Chinese officials following the unrest made it very difficult for a fair trial to be conducted. Urumqi’s Communist Party Secretary stated in a news conference in July that “brutal criminals will be sentenced to death”.

The defendants were also denied legal representation of their choice, with judicial authorities in Beijing putting pressure on human rights lawyers not to take up the cases of the accused. …… (More from Amnesty International)

China: 43 Detainees ‘Disappeared’ After Xinjiang Protests, Recent Report Shows

Human Rights Watch, October 21, 2009 –

(New York) – The Chinese government should immediately account for all detainees in its custody and allow independent investigations into the July 2009 protests in Urumqi and their aftermath, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on enforced “disappearances” released today.

The 44-page report, “‘We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them’: Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang’s Protests,” documents the enforced disappearances of 43 Uighur men and teenage boys who were detained by Chinese security forces in the wake of the protests.

“The cases we documented are likely just the tip of the iceberg,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Chinese government says it respects the rule of law, but nothing could undermine this claim more than taking people from their homes or off the street and ‘disappearing’ them – leaving their families unsure whether they are dead or alive.”

Last week, Xinjiang judicial authorities started trials of people accused of involvement in the protests. Nine men have already been sentenced to death, three others to death with a two-year reprieve, and one to life imprisonment.

Human Rights Watch research has established that on July 6-7, 2009, Chinese police, the People’s Armed Police, and the military conducted numerous large-scale sweep operations in two predominantly Uighur areas of Urumqi, Erdaoqiao, and Saimachang. On a smaller scale, these operations and targeted raids continued at least through mid-August.

The victims of “disappearances” documented by Human Rights Watch were young Uighur men. Most were in their 20s, although the youngest reported victims were 12 and 14 years old. It is possible that some Han Chinese also became victims of “disappearances” and unlawful arrests. However, none of the more than two dozen Han Chinese residents of Urumqi interviewed by Human Rights Watch provided any information about such cases.

According to witnesses, the security forces sealed off entire neighborhoods, searching for young Uighur men. In some cases, they first separated the men from other residents, pushed them to their knees or flat on the ground, and, at least in some cases, beat the men while questioning them about their participation in the protests. Those who had wounds or bruises on their bodies, or had not been at their homes during the protests, were then taken away. In other cases, the security forces simply went after every young man they could catch and packed them into their trucks by the dozens……. (more details from Human Rights Watch)

China Police Enforced Uyghur Family Burial in Xinjiang Province

Radio Free Asia, 2009-09-21 –

HONG KONG—Police in China’s remote Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region surrounded the home of an ethnic Uyghur man who died in police custody and forced the family to bury him without an inquiry into how he died, the man’s father said.

The burial on Sunday ended a tense standoff between police in remote Lengger [in Chinese, Langan] village and the family of Shohret Tursun, 31, whose badly bruised and disfigured body was released to his relatives on Saturday.

On Saturday, one villager said eight trucks of soldiers and two other armed vehicles had surrounded Tursun’s family home in Lengger [in Chinese, Langan] village in Qorghas [in Chinese, Huocheng] county, Ili prefecture—after the family refused to bury him as instructed without an inquiry.

“We locked the door of the room where we keep the body, but the police officers broke the lock,” Tursun’s father, Tursun Ishan, said in an interview. “There were too many…”

“There were police officers waiting in front of our door. From the cemetery to the house, it was full of police officers on the street. Since yesterday, there were police officers on each and every corner of the city. They wouldn’t let people from other neighborhoods join the funeral.”

“My two daughters were trying to prevent the police officers from entering, but the police were very harsh with them. We were forced to bury [the body],” Ishan said.

“They told me that he had a heart attack. But it was a lie. It is a lie. My son never had a medical problem in his life,” Ishan said.

“His body was full of wounds and bruises—his legs, belly, and back were covered with wounds and scars. His chest was full of bruises.”

Police continued to surround the family home and the cemetery shortly after midnight Tuesday, he said.

Ethnic rioting

Tursun, a member of the Uyghur ethnic minority and the father of a two-year-old, was among some 40 men from Qorghas detained around the time of deadly protests July 5 in the regional capital, Urumqi, villagers said.

The protests by Uyghurs, a largely Muslim Turkic people, followed alleged official mishandling of earlier ethnic clashes in far-away Guangdong province.

The July 5 protest sparked days of deadly rioting in Urumqi, pitting Uyghurs against majority Han Chinese and ending with a death toll of almost 200, by the government’s tally.

Tursun was detained July 6 in Urumqi. He was transferred to Ili on July 18 and Qorghas on July 23, he father said.

“If I had bribed the police officers, my son would probably be released,” he said. “I considered selling my land to save my child, but his wife and mother were afraid a bribe would make him look guilty.”

“Another boy in the same prison cell with my son was released after his family paid 30,000” yuan, or about U.S. $4,400, he said……. (more details from Radio Fraa Asia)

China’s Muslim Uyghurs Forbidden to Fast During Ramadan

Epoch Times Staff  Sep 1, 2009  –

Chinese authorities in Xinjiang Province have issued a notice that any Uyghur cadres or workers found not eating lunch during Ramadan could lose their jobs.

It is part of the campaign of local authorities in Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, to force the Uyghur people to give up their religious rituals during the fasting month of Ramadan.

Ramadan is a holy month in the Islamic calendar, which begun this year on Aug. 22. It requires not eating during the daytime.

“Free lunches, tea, and coffee—that authorities are calling ‘Care from the government’ or ‘Living allowance’—are being offered in government departments and companies. But it is actually a ploy used to find out who is fasting,” said Dilxat Raxit, World Uyghur Congress spokesman, speaking to The Epoch Times.

According to Dilxat, Uyghur Communist Party cadres throughout Xinjiang had been forced to sign “letters of responsibility” promising to avoid fasting and other religious activities. They are also responsible for enforcing the policy in their assigned areas, and face punishment if anyone in these areas fasts.

For the first time, Dilxat said, the crackdown has extended to retired Communist Party members. Current cadres are required to visit them to prevent them from participating in the fast. If anyone violates the ban, local leaders will be held responsible and severely punished, he said.

Muslim restaurant owners are forced to sign a document to remain open and continue selling alcohol during Ramadan or have their licenses revoked, he said.

Uyghurs arrested during the July riots in Urumqi are also prohibited from fasting; those who insist on fasting will be force fed food and water while enduring insults for their misbehavior, he said in the interview.

Monks in mosques are forced to preach to others that fasting is a “feudal activity” and harmful to health, said Dilxat. Otherwise, their religious certification will be cancelled……. (more details from The Epochtimes)

Flare-Ups of Ethnic Unrest Shake China’s Self-Image

By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post Foreign Service, Sunday, July 19, 2009 –

YINGDE, China — Six weeks after a violent confrontation between police and villagers in this old tea farming region, Xu Changjian remains in the hospital under 24-hour guard.

After being hit in the head multiple times by police, Xu’s brain is hemorrhaging, leaving him paralyzed on the right side. He can barely sit up. Local government officials say Xu’s injuries and that of other farmers were regrettable but unavoidable. They say that villagers attacked their police station on the afternoon of May 23 and that the police were forced to defend themselves with batons, dogs, pepper spray, smoke bombs and water cannons.

The villagers, most of them Vietnamese Chinese, tell a different story. They say that about 30 elderly women, most in their 50s and 60s, went to the police station that day to stage a peaceful protest. Four farmers’ representatives, who had taken their grievances about land seizures to government officials a few days earlier, had been detained, and villagers in the countryside of the southern province of Guangdong demanded that they be freed. As the hours passed, several thousand supporters and curious passersby joined them. Then, farmers say, hundreds of riot police bused from neighboring towns stormed in without warning and started indiscriminately pummeling people in the crowd.

The violence in Guangdong was echoed in the far western city of Urumqi, when clashes between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese on July 5 killed 192 people and injured about 1,700. Both incidents have shaken China’s view of itself as a country that celebrates diversity and treats its minority populations better than its counterparts in the West do.

The incidents in Guangdong and Urumqi fit a pattern of ethnic unrest that includes the Tibetan uprising in March 2008, followed by bombings at police stations and government offices in the majority Uighur province of Xinjiang that left 16 officers dead shortly before the August Olympics.

Each conflict has had specific causes, including high unemployment, continued allegations of corruption involving public officials and charges of excessive force by police. But for the Chinese government, they add up to a major concern: Friction among the nation’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups is considered one of the most explosive potential triggers for social instability. Much of the unrest stems from a sense among some minority populations that the justice system in China is stacked against them. In March, hundreds of Tibetans, including monks, clashed with police in the northwestern province of Qinghai. The fight was apparently triggered by the disappearance of a Tibetan independence activist who unfurled a Tibetan flag while in police custody. Some said he committed suicide, but others said he died while trying to escape.

In April, hundreds of members of China’s Hui Muslim minority clashed with police in Luohe in Henan province when they surrounded a government office and blocked three bridges. The protesters were angry about what they viewed as the local authorities’ mishandling of the death of a Hui pedestrian who was hit by a bus driven by a Han man.

“In the United States and other countries, if a few police beat one person, it is big news; but here in China, it is nothing,” said Zhang Shisheng, 52, a grocery store owner whose right shin and calf bones were shattered during the attacks. Metal rods now support his shin, and he will not be able to walk for at least six more months.

“I feel that Chinese cops can kill people like ants with impunity.”

Xiang Wenming, a local party official and head of the Stability Maintenance Office in the area of Yingde where the clash occurred, said that “if some violence happened, that is because some people didn’t listen to the police.”…… (more details from The Washington Post)

Facebook Inaccessible in China After Violent Clashes in Urumqi

By Tim Culpan, The Bloomberg, July 9, 2009 –

July 9 (Bloomberg) — Facebook Inc.’s social-networking Web site was inaccessible in China as the government blocks information after violent clashes in one of its regions.

As of 1:36 p.m. Beijing time, there were at least 36 reports of Facebook.com being unavailable from China, according to Herdict.org, a project at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, which tracks Web outages. Local access to the YouTube.com video site of Google Inc. was also broken, and connections to Amazon.com Inc.’s online store were irregular.

China’s government, which maintains tight control over the Internet, media and information flow, severed access to e-mails and the Web this week in the western city of Urumqi in Xinjiang province amid ethnic clashes that left more than 150 people dead and 1,000 injured. Authorities blocked Google’s search engine last month amid criticism it spread pornography.

“The government wants to show it’s doing as much as it can to prevent links to information from overseas as well as from inside China,” Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA China, a Beijing- based technology consultancy, said by phone. “It won’t work.”

Facebook.com couldn’t be accessed from Beijing or Shanghai as of 11 a.m. local time, while connections were possible from Seattle and Brisbane, Australia, according to WebSitePulse.com. Yahoo! Inc.’s Yahoo.com Internet portal and Microsoft Corp.’s Hotmail.com e-mail service were reachable from all four locations, according to WebSitePulse.com.

“It does appear to be running slowly” in China, said Larry Yu, a spokesman for Palo Alto, California-based Facebook. “We’re looking into the matter, what the reason is for the service running slowly.”

‘Prisoner of State’

Amazon.com, the world’s largest online store, sells “Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang,” the banned memoirs of the former chief of the Chinese Communist Party, who was under 16 years of house arrest until his death in 2005. He secretly taped his account of the infighting among party officials before they ordered the military to crush pro-democracy demonstrations on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Clicking on the book’s Web page from China blocks the whole site for at least 15 minutes, and it can be re-accessed once the Internet browser’s history is cleared.

This may mark the first time the government has totally suppressed access to Amazon.com, broadening previous restrictions on Web pages for individual books, Clark said. …… (More from Bloomberg)

Spanish judge to quiz China officials over Tibet

AFP, May 5, 2009 –

MADRID (AFP) — A Spanish judge said on Tuesday he intended to question eight Chinese leaders as official suspects in a case of genocide in connection with a crackdown on unrest that erupted in Tibet in March 2008.

National Court judge Santiago Pedraz sent a letter to Chinese authorities formally requesting permission to travel to China to question the eight, including Defence Minister Liang Guanglie and Minister for State Security Geng Huichang.

“Given the cordial relations between our two respective countries, I hope that you will respond favourably to my request,” he wrote referring to a bilateral justice cooperation agreement signed in 2005, according to a court document obtained by AFP.

The suit was filed against the Chinese leaders in July 2008 by a Tibetan rights groups, the Tibet Support Committee, and accepted by the court the following month just days before the opening of the Beijing Olympics.

It “denounces the new wave of oppression that began in Tibet on 10th March 2008, and just goes to prove that acts of genocide continue to be committed against the Tibetan people”.

It also “denounces China’s manipulation of the global war against terrorism in its attempt to justify and cover up crimes against humanity committed against the Tibetan people”.

Unrest in Tibet erupted on March 14 last year after four days of peaceful protests against Chinese rule.

The Tibetan government-in-exile says 203 Tibetans were killed and about 1,000 hurt in China’s crackdown. Beijing insists that only one Tibetan was killed and has in turn accused the “rioters” of killing 21 people.

The crackdown sparked international protests that dogged the month-long global journey of the Olympic torch in April.

The judge said that if the accusations made in the complaint are proven, they would constitute crimes against humanity under Spanish law.

“The Tibetan population would appear to be a group that is persecuted by the cited authorities for political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or other motives universally recognised as unacceptable under international law,” he wrote.

Spain has since 2005 operated under the principle of “universal jurisdiction”, a doctrine that allows courts to reach beyond national borders in cases of torture, terrorism or war crimes.

Other Chinese officials named in the suit were Communist Party Secretary in Tibet Zhang Qingli, Politburo member Wang Lequan, Ethnic Affairs Commission head Li Dezhu, People’s Liberation Army Commander in Lhasa General Tong Guishan, Public Security Minister Meg Jianzhu and Zhang Guihua, political commissar in the Chengdu military command.

The suit against the eight is an extension to another complaint filed by the Tibet Support Committee in 2006.

That suit accuses Chinese leaders, including former president Jiang Zemin and former prime minister Li Peng, of torture and crimes against humanity as well as genocide allegedly carried out in Tibet during the 1980s.

The National Court has been hearing that case since June 2006.

Beijing has condemned the accusations of genocide in Tibet as slander and it has accused Madrid of trying to interfere in its administration of the Buddhist Himalayan region.

China has ruled Tibet since 1951, a year after sending troops in to “liberate” the remote region.

– AFP

Video Confirms China’s Use of Torture in Tibetan Protests

By Joshua Philipp, Epoch Times Staff, Mar 21, 2009-

The Tibetan Government-in-Exile released new video footage of the protests in Lhasa last year that confirms the use of extreme violence and torture by Chinese authorities. The footage is evidence against the Chinese communist regime’s denial that torture is used in Tibet.

“This extremely rare and shocking footage confirms our worst fears about the horrific pain and suffering Tibetans are experiencing at the hands of the Chinese authorities in the wake of last year’s uprising,” said Lhadon Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet, in a press release.

“The brutality of the Chinese authorities against Tibetans in this footage is not the exception to, but rather the rule of, Beijing’s treatment of the Tibetan people over the past 50 years,” he said.

One segment of the video, recorded on March 14, 2008, shows Chinese police beating Tibetan prisoners with batons, after they were arrested in the protests. The prisoners have their hands tied behind their backs and can only curl in an attempt to resist the beatings.

Another segment of the video shows gruesome images of a young Tibetan by the name of Tendar being tortured by Chinese authorities. He was reportedly fired at, beaten with an electric baton, burned with cigarettes, and his right foot was pierced by a nail.

The video shows him after being brought to the TAR People’s Hospital. His body is covered with rotting wounds from lack of proper treatment. The hospital removed 2.5 kg of decaying flesh.

Tendar died from his injuries on June 19, 2008.

The protests in Tibet began on March 10, 2008, leading up to the Beijing Olympics.

Officials from the Chinese Communist Party have repeatedly denied that torture was used in Tibet. In November 2008 when the U.N. panel released a report on the use of torture on Tibetans by Chinese police, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the reports “untrue and slanderous” and accused the committee members of being “prejudiced” against China.

In the Lhasa protests and the following crackdown by the communist regime, close to 220 Tibetans were killed, more than 1,294 were seriously injured, and more than 1,000 simply disappeared. The Chinese authorities arrested more than 5,600 Tibetans, of which 290 are known to have been sentenced.

The Chinese Communist Party is still holding Tibet under martial law.

The video, which is at times difficult to watch, can be seen at: http://footage.tibetanbridges.com/Torture-in-Tibet.mov

– The Epochtimes

Unrest in Tibet continues as human rights violations escalate

Amnesty International, 10 March 2009-

Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising in 1959, which led the Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, to flee to India.

Last year’s anniversary saw a wave of largely peaceful protests in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Tibetan-populated areas in neighbouring provinces. These protests led to arbitrary arrests and other human rights violations including prolonged detention and imprisonment, torture and other ill-treatment.

The Chinese authorities’ failure to address the long-standing grievances of the Tibetan people, including unequal employment and educational opportunities, scores of Tibetans detained and the intensification of the “patriotic education” campaign has fuelled protests that have continued over the past 12 months.

Overseas Tibetan organizations have documented between 130-200 individual protests since March 2008.

Monks and nuns, laypeople and nomads have been taking part in popular protests across Tibetan-populated areas. Reports of Tibetan protests are matched by those of tightened security measures and calls to “crush” any demonstrations of support for the Dalai Lama, especially over the recent weeks. Despite this, popular Tibetan protests have continued across the region.

Some observers have interpreted the tightened security measures which include the removal of monks and nuns from monasteries, and an increasing presence of the People’s Armed Police as acts of provocation.

The “Winter Strike Hard Unified Checking Campaign” was launched in Lhasa on 18 January. The campaign aimed to “vigorously uphold the city’s social order and stability”, targeting in particular those who are not permanent Lhasa residents.

According to the Lhasa Evening News, in the first three days of the campaign, the police had “thoroughly checked” nearly 6,000 people in residential blocks, rented accommodations, hotels, guesthouses, internet cafes and bars. The police had detained 81 suspects by 24 January, including two for having “reactionary songs and opinions” on their mobile phones.

The People’s Armed Police are reported to have shot a 24-year-old Tibetan monk who set himself on fire on 27 February 2009. The monk was holding a homemade Tibetan flag with a picture of the Dalai Lama on it.

The incident took place in Ngaba county (Chinese: Aba), Ngaba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan province, after the local authorities dispersed a group of hundreds of monks who had gathered to observe a prayer ceremony.

The official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, confirmed that a protest took place and that a monk was taken to a hospital to be treated for burn injuries. The Chinese authorities later denied the shooting.

The continued lock-down in Tibet has made independent verification of reports difficult and raised fears that reports of human rights violations that reach the outside world represent just a fraction of the whole.

Foreign journalists have previously needed a special permit to travel to the TAR. However, in the wake of the unrest in spring 2008, they have been allowed to visit the TAR only on government organized group tours……. (more details from Amnesty International)

China: ‘Quick Arrests and Quick Sentencings’ Followed Tibetan Protests

Human Rights Watch, March 9, 2009 –

(New York) – The first extensive analysis of official Chinese accounts regarding the arrests and trials of Tibetan protesters from March 2008 shows that by the Chinese government’s own count, there have been thousands of arbitrary arrests, and more than 100 trials pushed through the judicial system, Human Rights Watch said today. New Human Rights Watch research and analysis point to a judicial system so highly politicized as to preclude any possibility of protesters being judged fairly.

Human Rights Watch has examined dozens of court reports, statements by leading officials, local judicial statistics, and official Chinese press reports. These documents reveal that the number of protests was higher than previously acknowledged by the government, that protesters have been sentenced outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region in the provinces of Sichuan and Gansu, that protestors died or were killed in Lhasa, and that courts have sentenced protesters under state security charges for nonviolent acts such as waving the Tibetan flag and throwing pamphlets on the street.

“The Chinese government has refused every external request for a real accounting of the detention, arrest and sentencing of those involved with the Tibetan protests,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Both the arrests and the releases seem to have been arbitrary, and we still know next to nothing about those who are still detained or have been imprisoned.”

Against a backdrop of ever-more intrusive controls over religious and cultural activities, accelerated state-led economic development, and large-scale compulsory resettlement of farmers and nomads, major protests against Chinese rule erupted on March 10, 2008, in Lhasa and spread across the Tibetan plateau. That date marked the anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Over the next four days, hundreds of monks from Drepung, Sera, and Ganden temples peacefully protested. But on March 14 near Romoche temple, members of the public started protesting police who were preventing monks from leaving the compound; some protesters turned violent and burned several police cars. The police retreated and then inexplicably disappeared from Lhasa for much of the rest of the day. Rioters burned Chinese shops and government buildings and attacked Chinese-looking passersby. Dozens of protests were held in Tibetan communities across the plateau over the course of that week.

The Chinese government has framed all discussions about Tibet as a sovereignty issue, claiming that the country’s territorial integrity and inter-ethnic relations were threatened by a secessionist movement supported by “hostile foreign forces.” The government has consistently rejected all allegations of human rights abuses in Tibet, by claiming that Tibetans’ rights are fully protected under the law; pointing to political, social and economic development over the past half-century; or rejecting the expression of such concerns as conspiracies to fan ethnic dissatisfaction against the Communist Party and the government.

“The government’s national security concerns do not exempt it from its obligation to respect fundamental rights and freedoms and offer equal status before the law to all its citizens, whatever their ethnicity,” said Richardson. “Yet Beijing’s own official accounts reflect judicial defects so severe that it is not possible to deliver a fair trial to any one accused of having taken part in the protests last year.”

Human Rights Watch said that the government’s official figures about arrests and convictions suggested that several hundred suspected protesters are still in custody. The Chinese government, which says that the protests resulted in 21 casualties, has not responded to demands from the United Nations and international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch to account for these detentions. In a joint appeal on April 10, 2008, six United Nations special procedures mandate holders issued an urgent appeal calling on the government of China for “complete compliance with due process and fair trial rights according to international standards for those detained or charged with crimes, including provision of each person’s name, the charges against them, and the facility where they are detained or imprisoned, as well as ensuring access to legal defense.” …… (more details from Human Rights Watch)

Tibet: China raids thousands of homes, detains at least 81

By Maureen Fan, The Washington Post, USA, January 29, 2009 –

BEIJING, Jan. 28 — Chinese authorities carrying out a “strike hard” campaign in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa have raided thousands of homes and businesses, run checks on 5,766 suspects, and detained at least 81 people, including two for having reactionary songs and music on their cellphones, according to official reports and news accounts.

According to reports Sunday in the state-controlled Tibetan Daily and last week in the Lhasa Evening News, the campaign targets criminal activity such as burglary, prostitution and theft and is needed to uphold the city’s social order. But experts and activists who support greater autonomy for Tibet said the motive behind the campaign, which began Jan. 18, was to detain those involved in last spring’s riots and warn off others who support Tibetan independence.

Chinese leaders are worried about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising. On March 10, 1959, Tibetans rose up against Chinese rule, but the rebellion ended after 20 days with the flight of the Dalai Lama into exile in India. Beijing-backed Tibetan lawmakers have proposed a new holiday this year, on March 28, the day China announced the dissolution of the Tibetan government, to mark the “liberation” of Tibetan serfs.

Lhasa’s entire investigative police force mobilized more than 600 people and 160 vehicles to check 2,922 rented apartments or houses, 14 hotels and guesthouses, 18 bars, and three Internet cafes, the Lhasa Evening News said, according to a translation e-mailed by the International Campaign for Tibet, which advocates more autonomy for the Himalayan region. The police push follows 10 months of tight security after rioting broke out March 14, leading to the deaths of at least 18 civilians and one police officer and sparking anti-government protests and a massive government crackdown.

“Strike hard” campaigns have historically been launched in China to fight crime and corruption. But in this case, the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement, “the motive is to intimidate and eliminate those supporting Tibetan independence and human rights activists in Tibet.”

The public security bureau in Lhasa said Wednesday that it had no information and suggested other officials, whose telephones rang unanswered. China is celebrating a week-long Lunar New Year holiday.

Thousands of armed police continued to patrol Lhasa on Wednesday, according to residents who were contacted by telephone. Some speculated that the raids were deliberately timed just ahead of the Lunar New Year. Some Tibetans have said they won’t celebrate until the return of the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing regards as a dangerous separatist, while others said they prefer the Tibetan New Year, which occurs next month, over the Chinese one.

“There are a lot of policemen patrolling with guns right now,” said Zhuoga, 24, a housekeeper at the Zhengchang Dongcuo International Youth Hostel in Lhasa, who like most Tibetans uses only one name. “In each alley and each intersection there are armed patrols. Before, even in the winter, we were full, but right now our guests are far fewer.”

Arwang, a monk living in Qinghai province who declined to name his monastery for fear of reprisals, said, “This year, few Tibetans — especially monks — will celebrate the New Year.” Asked why, he said: “Can we not talk about this? Traditionally, some of us celebrate both the Tibetan and Chinese New Years, but this year we neither ate good food nor lit firecrackers.”

Zheng, a freshman at Chengdu University who was home for the winter holiday working at her family’s cigarette and wine shop, did not expect any trouble this year. “Some people say the riots might happen again this year,” she said. “But since security is so strict now, it’s impossible that anything horrible will happen.”

– The Washington Post: Chinese Launch Raids, Detentions in Tibet