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14/03/2015 News

TCHRD highlights human rights violations in Tibet at ongoing UNHRC session

TCHRD’s senior researcher John Gaudette along with Professor Heiner Bielefeld, Derek Brett, and Dr Ojot Miru Ojulu at the side event organised by IFOR in Geneva.

Every year the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has three regular sessions. The session in March is usually the most important. The March session is attended by top government officials and more NGOs than the other sessions. To accommodate the large number of officials and participants, the March session is one week longer than the other regular sessions.

This year the March session began on 2 March and will last until 27 March. Given the ongoing and serious human rights violations in Tibet, TCHRD took the opportunity to send two senior researchers to the UNHRC to discuss the situation in Tibet. On Friday 13 March, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) organized a side event on religious repression in East Asia. John Gaudette, a senior researcher at TCHRD, participated in the event as a panelist. The other panelists included the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom and Belief Professor Heiner Bielefeld and Derek Brett, IFOR’s representative to the UN in Geneva. The event was moderated by Dr Ojot Miru Ojulu from the Lutheran World Federation.

09/03/2015 News

Freedom of peaceful assembly under attack: Tibetan monk detained for non-violent protest

A teenage Tibetan monk has become the latest target of China’s consistent and systematic attacks on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly in Tibet.

Gedun Phuntsok, 18, a monk from Kirti Monastery in Ngaba County was detained on 8 March for staging a peaceful protest calling for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet and for “freedom and equality” in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture (Sichuan Province), in the Tibetan province of Amdo.

The solo protest occurred at about 1.30 pm (local time) in Ngaba County town where on the main road, Gedun Phuntsok walked carrying a huge portrait of the Dalai Lama draped in a yellow khatag (Tibetan ceremonial scarf) on his head and shouted slogans such as “Let His Holiness the Dalai Lama return to Tibet” and “Freedom and equality for Tibet”, according to a source with close contacts in Tibet.

09/03/2015 News

Tibetan mother dies in self-immolation protest: Body quickly cremated for fear of seizure by police

Norchug died of self-immolation protest in Ngaba County

A mother of three died of self-immolation protest and was cremated in rush for fear of the body’s seizure by local Chinese police in Tibet.

Norchug, 47, set herself alight in protest and died on the evening of 5 March which coincided with Chotrul Duechen (Butter Lamp Festival), one of the four Tibetan Buddhist festivals commemorating the events in the life of the Buddha, a source with contacts in Tibet informed TCHRD.

“Norchug staged the peaceful protest of self-immolation against repressive policies of the Chinese government and to call for religious and political freedoms for Tibetan people,” the source told TCHRD.

04/03/2015 News / Thematic Reports

TCHRD report documents crisis of maternal and child health in Tibet

On 4 March 2015 the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) released a special report on the right to health, entitled In the Shadow of Development: Maternal and Child Health in Crisis in Tibet. The report documents how a failing system of public healthcare has permitted extremely poor maternal and child health to persist in Tibet, despite drastic improvements in conditions in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The report reveals that rural-living Tibetan women and children bear some of the highest risks in the PRC for birth-related illness and death, and finds that maternal and child health in Tibet is the worst in the PRC by a wide margin. In the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in 2009, maternal and infant mortality were the highest in the PRC, 8 and 2.7 times higher than the national average, respectively. Severe child malnutrition, at 3.6%, was over twice as high. Life expectancy in the TAR was 8.5 years shorter than average and the lowest in the PRC.

11/02/2015 News

South Africa should stand with Dalai Lama and Tibetan political prisoners

His Holiness the Dalai Lama's meeting with Mandela in 1996 in South Africa. (Photo: ANC Archives) — His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s meeting with Mandela in 1996 in South Africa. (Photo: ANC Archives)

On 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Vester Prison. He spent 27 years in prison. Initially, Mandela was sentenced to five years in prison for leaving South Africa without a passport and inciting people to go on strike. He left South Africa to attend the Conference of the Pan-African Movement for East and Central Africa, he did not apply for a passport because he knew he would not be granted one by Apartheid South Africa. He later received a life sentence for sabotage.

07/02/2015 Annual Reports / News

Annual Report 2014: Human Rights Situation in Tibet

On 7 February 2015 the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) released its 2014 Annual Report on human rights situation in Tibet. The report is available in English, Tibetan, and, for the first time, Chinese.

The Annual Report demonstrates that despite the promised reforms, the human rights situation in Tibet is continuing to deteriorate. In particular, the Annual Report highlights death in detention, collective punishment, and restrictions on the right to freedom of assembly and association. In all three areas the treatment of Tibetans has deteriorated substantially.

06/02/2015 News

TCHRD welcomes introduction of targeted sanctions bill for violators of human rights

Cover of "Ending Impunity: Crimes Against Humanity in Tibet", a special report released by TCHRD in September 2013 — Cover of “Ending Impunity: Crimes Against Humanity in Tibet”, a special report released by TCHRD in September 2013

At the end of January the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act was introduced in the United States’ Senate (S.284) and House of Representatives (H.R.624). The bill builds upon the success of the Magnitsky Act and allows the president to create a list of people who are responsible for significant corruption, extrajudicial killings, torture, and other gross human rights abuses. People on the list will be banned from the United States and have their financial assets in the United States frozen. Human rights organizations have welcomed the groundbreaking legislation.

02/02/2015 News

China engages in political purge in the name of anti-corruption drive in Tibet

Ye Dongsong is the head of the 4th inspection team of CPC's Central Leading Group for Inspection Work. This group is under the direction of Wang Qishan, the secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. (Photo: tibet.cn) — Ye Dongsong is the head of the 4th inspection team of CPC’s Central Leading Group for Inspection Work. This group is under the direction of Wang Qishan, the secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. (Photo: tibet.cn)

In January this year, official government-run media in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced [1] the first prosecutions of officials under the anti-corruption campaign in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). The announcement specifically highlighted the punishment of 15 officials for supporting [2] the Dalai Lama.

The punishment of officials in Tibetan areas for supporting the Dalai Lama or not maintaining stability by striking hard is not a new development. The announcement simply demonstrates that the pre-existing policies have been added to the crackdown on corruption. The underlying repressive policies have been relabelled—not changed.

30/01/2015 News

Remembering the fearless ‘ghost’ Tenzin Choedrak (1981-2014)

Tenzin Choedrak, a Tibetan social activist died two days after his release from prison at the age of 34. He was serving a 15-year prison term for acting as a ringleader of the March 2008 protests in Lhasa, Tibet [1].

When he was returned to his family, Choedrak had dislocated jawbones and damaged kidneys. He was physically emaciated and vomiting blood because of a brain injury. All the bones in his feet were broken. This suggests that he may have been subjected to the falaka, or foot whipping, torture technique. The falaka involves beating the sole’s of the victim’s feet with a heavy cable or whatever else is available. It causes extreme pain up the victim’s body and the feet to swell. The technique was used in the PRC, the Middle East, and Romania.[2]

29/12/2014 News

Tibetan university student detained for blogging on self-immolation

Chinese authorities have arbitrarily detained a Tibetan university student who is also an active blogger on issues sensitive for the Chinese government such as self-immolation, according to information received by TCHRD.

Meu Soepa, 21, a student of literature at Northwest University for Nationalities in Lanzhou was detained at about 4 pm on 27 December by a group of officers from the Ngaba County Stability Maintenance Office and Public Security Bureau (PSB) in Meuruma town in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) County in Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the Tibetan province of Amdo.

29/12/2014 News

Two monks detained, many others beaten and detained in Ngaba

Losang Trinley was detained for peaceful protest

Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has been informed by a reliable source that Chinese paramilitary forces detained a monk for staging peaceful protest and detained another for unknown reasons in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) County in Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the Tibetan province of Amdo.

Losang Trinley, about 21, a monk from the local Kirti Monastery was beaten up and detained from the main road in Ngaba County shortly after about 4 pm on 26 December, after he carried a portrait of the Dalai Lama draped in Tibetan national flag on his forehead and shouted slogans such as “May the Dalai Lama live for hundreds of years” and “Tibet needs freedom”. The peaceful protest lasted for some minutes before paramilitary police arrived on the scene and took the monk away.