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.
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.
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]
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.
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.
Exile Tibetan media have reported yet another self-immolation yesterday of a monk in Tawu (Ch: Daofu) County in Kardze (Ch: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the Tibetan province of Kham.
Kelsang Yeshi, 38, a monk at Tawu Nyatso Monastery and a social activist set himself ablaze at around 11.20 am (local time) on 23 December before the entrance gate of a police station inside the monastery compounds. The monk who had studied in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in south India called for “the return of Dalai Lama to Tibet” and “freedom for Tibetans” as he set his body on fire.
Tsepey, 19, died after setting herself alight at Meuruma Township in Ngaba County.
A Tibetan nomad woman died of self-immolation protest yesterday evening in Meuruma Township in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) County in Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the Tibetan province of Amdo.
Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has been informed by a reliable source that Tsepey, 19, died soon after setting herself alight shortly after 4 pm (local time) on 22 December. Tsepey died instantly on the main road in Meuruma Township, the site of her self-immolation protest, but police took away her body by force.
A Tibetan man set himself alight to protest Chinese government this week at Amchok (Ch: Amuqu) Township in Sangchu ( Ch: Xiahe) County in Kanlho (Ch: Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, in the Tibetan province of Amdo.
According to reports published in exile media, the self-immolation protest was staged by a Tibetan father of two, Sangye Khar, 34, at 9 am (local time) in front of the loca Public Security Bureau office at Amchok Township. Sangye Khar chose to self-immolate on 16 December, coinciding with the death anniversary of Je Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Senior Buddhist scholar Geshe Ngawang Jamyang was beaten to death in police custody less than a month after his arrest in December 2013 in Diru County.
Latest information received by Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) demonstrates escalating violence and crackdowns including extrajudicial killing and arbitrary detentions in Diru (Ch: Biru) County in Nagchu (Ch: Naqu) Prefecture of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), in the eastern Tibetan province of Kham.
A source with contacts in Tibet informed TCHRD that a popular and respected village headman became a victim of extrajudicial killings on 21 November on the orders of the local Communist Party authorities. Bachen Gyewa aka Ngawang Monlam, the headman of Ushung Village in Gyashoe Yangshok Township (also known as Sentsa Township) in Diru County was removed from his post, arrested and then killed on the orders of the secretary of the Diru County Party Committee.
The exact circumstances of his death remain unclear but it appears that Bachen Gyewa posed a formidable challenge to the Chinese government’s ongoing ‘stability maintenance’ measures that have been implemented since late 2011.[i] It did not help either that the late village headman was a former monk at the local Pekar Monastery which has witnessed sporadic yet intense demonstration against new religious measures implemented by the Chinese government.
Cover of TCHRD’s Special Report on Right to Education in Tibet
Sixty-six years ago, on 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a fundamental part of the international human rights system and, along with the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, is part of the international bill of human rights. Since 1950, every people and countries across the world have commemorated 10 December as Human Rights Day.
‘Human Rights-365’ is the theme of Human Rights Day this year. ‘Human Rights-365’ recognizes that human rights must be protected and defended every day.
Former social activist Tenzin Choedak died while still serving his prison sentence in Lhasa.
According to reliable information received by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), a Tibetan political prisoner serving a 15-year prison sentence died yesterday afternoon on 5 December. He was less than six years into his prison term in Chushur Prison near Lhasa city. His death confirms criticisms from human rights groups that torture and inhumane treatment is common in Chinese prisons in Tibet.
Tenzin Choedak, also known as Tenchoe, died just two days after he was released to his family by prison authorities. He died at Mentsekhang, the traditional Tibetan medical institute in Lhasa city, hours after his family admitted him there. Tenzin Choedak had previously worked for a European NGO affiliated to the Red Cross.
