The Tibetan people have been facing severe human rights violations at the hands of the Chinese government for over half a century. The Chinese government is now implementing policies that are displacing the Tibetan population: however they are not recognised internationally as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). This report utilises the UN Guidelines on Displacement as a methodology to analyse data…
On 3 April 2013, after 17 years Jigme Gyatso was released from prison. He entered prison a strong and healthy 35 year-old and left with weak eyesight, heart complications and kidney damage that kept him from walking upright. Eight years before his release Jigme Gyatso met the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, who strongly recommended Jigme Gyatso be released because his conviction for “endangering state security” by creating an illegal organization was based on information extracted by torture. During his 17 years imprisonment, he was electrocuted with electric batons and brutally beaten. Today, three months after Jigme Gyatso’s long-awaited release from prison, is the International Day in Support of Torture Victims as Jigme Gyatso struggles with his broken body to live again.
International Day in Support of Torture Victims commemorates the entry into force of the Convention Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment (or Convention Against Torture) on 26 June 1987 with the goal of eradicating torture.
No act, except for slavery, has been prohibited as unanimously and repeatedly as torture. The international community recognizes that the prohibition of torture, like genocide and slavery, is a jus cogens norm, a preemptory norm of international law from which no derogation is permitted. The universal rejection of torture forces torturers to deny its existence and hide their victims from the world by placing them in “black sites” and secret detention facilities or denying their existence.
The Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) recently received and published a summary of a manual it published by the Sichuan Provincial Political Department of the People’s Armed Police Force. The manual consists of 29 questions and answers on how the People’s Armed Police Force can cope with the psychological trauma caused by the violent nature of the People’s Armed Police Force in Tibetan areas of Sichuan. TCHRD presents an analysis of the manual by Matthew Akester.
Matthew Akester is a translator of classical and modern literary Tibetan with 25 years of experience as an independent researcher throughout the Tibetan world. He has worked as a consultant and contributor for the Tibet Information Network, Human Rights Watch, Tibet Heritage Fund, and Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. He is an advisor, editor, and translator for countless publications on Tibet in English, French, and Tibetan.
According to sources inside Tibet, on 11 June, Wangchen Dolma, a nun from Tawu (Ch: Daofu) County in Kardze (Ch: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture self-immolated in protest against Chinese rule.
Wangchen Dolma, 31, committed her self-immolation near Nyatso Monastery Tawu County in the Tibetan province of Kham. She hailed from Dragthog Village in Tawu County and her father’s name is Tenzin and mother’s Youdon.
The Chinese police immediately arrived at the scene of the self-immolation and took her to a local hospital in Dartsedo (Ch: Kangding) in Kardze Prefecture.
Three days later on 14 June around 8 am, she succumbed to her injuries and died.
Wangchen Dolma became the 119th Tibetan and the third from Tawu region to self-immolate in protest of China’s repressive policies.
Sources said the Chinese police refused to give Wangchen Dolma’s body to her family and cremated it.
TCHRD has translated some of the songs from the album, ‘Agony of Unhealed Wounds’, to highlight the secret imprisonment of Tibetan musicians Chakdor and Pema Trinley in Ngaba County in the Tibetan province of Amdo. The release and distribution of the album in July last year led to the detention and imprisonment of Chakdor and Pema Trinley, and the disappearance of musician Khenrap and songwriter Nyagdompo.
Chakdor and Pema Trinley each received four years’ prison sentence in February this year. After being informed officially about the sentencing, family members of both the musicians made at least two unsuccessful attempts to visit them in Mianyang Prison. The Mianyang prison officials apparently had no knowledge about the musicians’ whereabouts.
Two Tibetan singers who were detained last year for releasing a music album titled “Agony of Unhealed Wounds” had been secretly sentenced to four years in prison in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) County in Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.
According to reliable information received by TCHRD, singers Pema Trinley, 22, and Chakdor, 32, both hailing from Meuruma nomadic village, had recorded and distributed a music DVD containing songs about current situation in Tibet including self-immolation protests, as well as songs in praise of the Dalai Lama, Panchen Lama, Kirti Rinpoche (exiled head of the Kirti monastery) and Lobsang Sangay (exiled Tibetan political leader). In July 2012, days after the release of the music album, both singers were arrested in the neighbouring Machu (Ch: Maqu) County in Kanlho (Ch: Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. For over six months, they were detained in Ngaba County, sources told TCHRD, before their secret sentencing in February this year.
The relentless crackdown on self-immolation protests in Tibet continued when Chinese authorities sentenced two Tibetan monks to three years in prison for holding religious rituals and prayer services for a Tibetan man who died of self-immolation protest in November last year in Kangtsa Township in Yadzi (Ch: Xunhua) Salar Autonomous County in Tsoshar (Ch: Haidong) Prefecture, Qinghai Province. The Chinese authorities deemed this exercise of the monks’ fundamental rights criminal pursuant to a 2012 guideline on handling self-immolations.
Wangchen Norbu, 25, died during a self-immolation protest on 19 November last year. As he burned, Wangchen Norbu called for an end to Chinese repression and demanded the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet, freedom in Tibet, and the release of the 11th Panchen Lama, and all the Tibetan political prisoners.
Imprisoned Tibetan monk and writer Gartse Jigme in a heartfelt appeal calls on the Chinese government to reach out to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to listen to the demands articulated by self-immolation protesters, as a first step towards creating a truly harmonious and stable Tibet where respect for Tibetan rights and freedoms would replace oppression and suffering.
This essay appears at the end of the second volume of his book, “Tsenpoi Nyingtop” (The King’s Valour) which was published this month in India after the author was sentenced to five years imprisonment. He is being imprisoned at an undisclosed location.
About the book, Gartse Jigme writes:
While publishing this book, I endured loads of pain. Tears drenched my heart. For the true values of truth, justice, rights, equality, peace and harmony, I sacrificed everything and wrote this book. This [book] is a source of joy to me. It is my hope for the future. The book is not at all meant to prove my heroism. This book is a way out for me to shed tears once for the suffering of my ancestors. The book is not written to prove my scholarly credentials. It is a way out for me to shed tears for the pain and suffering endured by my fellow-countrymen. To be honest, I am not a hero. I am not a scholar. I am not wealthy. I am nothing. Amid the waves of truth and justice, I cried once with the suffering of my fellow countrymen.
Almost a month after his release from prison on 24 April 2013, Lobsang Tenzin was finally allowed to see his extended family members and relatives. However, he still remains under house arrest and constant police supervision. He cannot meet non-family members and may only leave his house to go to the hospital with a police escort.
Lobsang Tenzin spent half of his life in Chinese prisons before his release. After initially being sentenced to death Lobsang Tenzin’s sentence was eventually reduced to 18 years in addition to the six he already served.
Last week, the Information Office of the State Council, or China’s Cabinet, issued a white paper on “Progress in China’s Human Rights in 2012”[i] as a part of its propaganda activity for the upcoming Universal Periodic Review later this year. Unsurprisingly, the white paper praised Chinese progress in human rights—pointing almost exclusively to the benefits of China’s continued economic development. However, behind the self-congratulatory praise and statistics lie China’s underlying philosophy of human rights, which fundamentally misunderstands the international human rights system. China’s white paper is oblivious to the indivisible and universal nature of human rights, and that guaranteeing human rights requires action and not just mere hollow proclamations.
According to the white paper, human rights are divisible and unrelated by treating economic development and the corresponding rights as supreme. The first section of the white paper concerns “Human Rights in Economic Construction” and states that, “it would be impossible to protect people’s rights and interests without first developing the economy to feed and clothe the people.” Rhetoric from China concerning the importance of economic development before even addressing civil and political rights is not new. During the Cold War both capitalist and communist states frequently advocated for either civil and political right or economic, social and cultural rights and ignored the other. This division was a political tool and never accurately described the international human rights system or the philosophy of human rights.
By branding Dalai Lama as their enemy and neglecting the demands of self-immolators, they have shown that they consider more than 99% of the Tibetan population as their enemies.
~ Gartse Jigme, imprisoned monk and writer
On 14 May 2013, two days before the launch of Chinese state television broadcaster CCTV’s fifth propaganda film on self-immolations, a Tibetan writer was quietly sentenced to five years in prison for writing a book on the issue of Tibet issue including self-immolation protests.
According to exile Tibetan sources, Gartse Jigme, 36, a writer and monk, was sentenced to prison on 14 May 2013 for authoring a book with political contents by Tsekhog (Ch: Zeku) County People’s Court in Malho (Ch: Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province.