Tag: tibet

Norchug died of self-immolation protest in Ngaba County
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.

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Annual Report English CoverOn 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.

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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.

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Passang Wangdu has been detained incommunicado following his lone protest.
Passang Wangchuk has been detained incommunicado following his lone protest.

A Tibetan businessman has been detained incommunicado for staging a lone protest in Kardze (Ch: Ganzi) County in Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (Sichuan Province), according to information received by Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD).

Passang Wanghuk aka Ngodrug, was arrested on 4 October 2014 following his protest against the Chinese government at the main market in Kardze County.

“In front of a huge assembled crowd at the main market in Kardze [County], Passang Wangchuk staged a protest against the Chinese government at around 10.50 am Saturday, 4 October 2014,” a source told TCHRD.

Passang Wangchuk was holding a white banner, emblazoned with slogans demanding human rights, freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet.

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geneva_photo
Tsering Tsomo addresses a protest rally in front the UN to focus attention on the recent self-immolation of Lhamo Tashi.

The director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), Ms. Tsering Tsomo, attended the 27th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) at the United Nations in Geneva from 14 to 24 September 2014, to draw the Council’s attention to the pressing human rights issues inside Tibet. On the sidelines of the session, Ms. Tsomo met and briefed various UN Special Procedures mandate holders, diplomats and NGO representatives on the current situation in Tibet and strongly appealed for their support.

In addition to delivering an oral statement (a video of the statement is available here starting at 49:27) on behalf of the Society for Threatened Peoples at the HRC session, Ms. Tsomo held an hour-long briefing for assistants to seven UN Special Procedure mandate holders. On 23 September 2014, Ms. Tsomo met with assistants to Special Rapporteur on religious freedom or belief; Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion; Special Rapporteur on Torture; Special Rapporteur on right to education; Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; and Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

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Photo Credit:Wikimedia Commons
Photo Credit:Wikimedia Commons

On 24 August, 40 Chinese paramilitary trainees were hospitalized in what is being described as a brawl between the drill instructors and their high school aged trainees. Social media in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was divided over whether to blame the incident on the drill instructors or the trainees. Regardless of who is blamed for the brawl it demonstrated that even trainees and other members of the security organizations are treated brutally by security organizations. A similar incident of abuse of trainees went viral in December 2013. In that case, a video showed eight People’s Armed Police officers beating five trainees.

By the standards of how Tibetans and other ethnic minorities are treated, these events are relatively minor. Less than two weeks before the brawl, Chinese paramilitary forces fired live ammunition into a crowd of Tibetans protesting the detention of a respected village leader. Five Tibetans died after being shot, detained, denied medical care, and tortured.

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UNHCHR
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein replaced Navi Pillay as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) would like to welcome Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein to the position of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which he assumed on Monday, 1 September.

High Commissioner Al Hussein comes to office when expectations for what the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) can do are high and the threat to human rights is growing. As High Commissioner Al Hussein’s predecessor, Ms. Navi Pillay, is the most powerful single voice advocating for human rights in the world and she was willing to confront politically powerful States, including China, over their human rights policies.

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Mr Jayadeva Ranade speaking at the seminar flanked by Dr Rajesh Kharat, John Gaudette and Tsering Tsomo
Mr Jayadeva Ranade speaking at the seminar flanked by Dr Rajesh Kharat, John Gaudette and Tsering Tsomo

On 22 and 23 August, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), working with the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Tibetan Students Forum, hosted a seminar on the Nepal-Tibet Relations and the Sino-Tibet Conflict. The two-day seminar gave the 100 attendees an opportunity to hear from and discuss with Indian and Tibetan government officials, academics, and students.

According to Tsering Tsomo, the executive director of TCHRD, the idea behind this seminar was to bring together students, academics, and practitioners to draw attention to some of the important, but frequently overlooked, issues regarding the Tibetan community. “The aim for the two-day seminar was to better understand and improve the situation for Tibetans in Nepal as well as to hear from emerging Tibetan scholars and their perspectives on the Sino-Tibetan conflict.”

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Cover of the special report on 'village democracy' in Tibetan
Cover of the special report on ‘village democracy’ in Tibetan

Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) proclaims that ‘all are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of law.’ Although the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has signed many UN treaties and conventions, it has consistently failed to implement and abide by them, and has resorted to its domestic laws and regulations to violate the basic and legitimate rights of its citizens.

As a member of the United Nations, the PRC is under legal obligation to educate its citizens, and implement within its territorial boundary, the laws, conventions and treaties of the UN. Instead of raising popular awareness about international human rights law, more emphasis is put on repressive domestic laws promoted and propagated under forced education campaigns such as ‘legal education’ or ‘patriotic education’.

To counter this, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), Dharamsala, has come out with two new publications titled “Nyamdrel Gyaltsog Ki Trim Yig Khag” (‘A Collection of United Nations’ Conventions) and “Sota Chen Ki Mangtso” (‘Monitored Democracy’).

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DVD cover of 'Through Flesh and Bones: Stories of Torture and Survival in Tibet'
DVD cover of ‘Through Flesh and Bones: Stories of Torture and Survival in Tibet’

Today, 26 June 2014, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) joins the international community in commemorating the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. On this day, we honor and support those who have suffered unjust, cruel and degrading forms of physical and mental torture.  We also express our deep concern over the use of torture against persons exercising their basic rights and freedoms.

We at TCHRD reaffirm our commitment to fulfilling the goal of the UN General Assembly Resolution 52/149 passed 12 December 1997, which proclaimed 26 June as ‘the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.’ That goal is the total eradication of torture and the effective implementation of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which entered into force on 26 June 1987.

As declared by the United Nations, torture is a crime under international law. It is a crime against humanity, ‘one of the vilest acts perpetrated by human beings on their fellow human beings,’ because torture aims to annihilate the victim’s personality, denying him or her the inherent dignity of human being. Torture strikes at the core of the physical and psychological integrity of a human being. Furthermore, the practice of torture often triggers heightened levels of human rights violations such as disappearances, extra judicial killings and genocide.

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wpfd eng poster‘Fight the Blackout’ campaign aims to highlight and end the extreme restrictions put on independent journalists and human rights monitors to visit and assess the ground situation in Tibet as Tibetans continue to self-immolate in protest and become victims of human rights abuses.

An initiative of Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), ‘Fight the Blackout’ campaign has been active online mobilizing support from the civil society including individuals and groups and reminding the larger humanity about the significance of the World Press Freedom Day, observed globally every year on 3 May, a day for governments to remember their duty to uphold the right to freedom of expression, a fundamental human right; a day to assess the state of press freedom throughout the world and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty; and a day to remember the restrictions imposed upon press freedom throughout the world, including in Tibet.

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