Tag: china

Apple_in_ChinaRecent reports that Apple’s suppliers have discriminated against Tibetans and other ethnic minorities in the People’s Republic of China demonstrate that the systematic and brutal discrimination by the Chinese government also exists in the private sector.  Chinese policies in Tibet subject Tibetans to religious persecution, forced displacement, arbitrary detention, torture, and murder.  Apple attempted to invest in China while still protecting and promoting human rights.

Apple is not the first corporation to invest in a discriminatory country while still trying to protect and promote human rights.  In 1977, Reverend Leon Sullivan, a General Motors board member, created the Sullivan Principles.  The Sullivan Principles originally consisted of six voluntary principles for multinational corporations in South Africa to follow.  The principles called on corporations to adopt equal employment practices, desegregate the workplace, promote trade unions, and provide training and social services for black workers.  In 1984, Sullivan also called upon corporations to use their influence to encourage South African corporations to adopt similar principles, to

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The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) today released a new report, Universal Periodic Review and China’s Human Rights Record in Tibet.  The report is available to the public and will be submitted to the United Nations Special Rapporteurs for Civil and Political rights.   Universal Periodic Review and China’s Human Rights Record in Tibet is part of TCHRD’s lobbying effort leading up to China’s Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council on 22 October 2013.  TCHRD is calling for China to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), one of the most important human rights treaties.

The release of Universal Periodic Review and China’s Human Rights Record in Tibet coincides with China’s submission of its national report on its human rights situation on 22 July.  In its report China will undoubtedly highlight economic development and other economic, social, cultural rights while ignoring civil and political rights as it did in its White Paper on Human Rights.  In the past China has treated human rights as divisible and focused on economic, social, and cultural rights to the exclusion of civil and political rights. 

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nomad-kitchen
Kitchen utensils and items of a typical Tibetan nomadic family. Source: http://www.tbnewyouth.com

One of the most urgent issues affecting Tibetans inside Tibet today is the massive displacement induced by China’s development projects. Last month, Human Rights Watch reported that almost two million Tibetans, predominately nomads, have been displaced from their ancestral lands over the past seven years to make way for Chinese development in Tibet. Resettled in concrete houses in urban areas, displaced Tibetans suffer from innumerable problems such as the loss of their traditional economic livelihood and cultural dislocation.

The Chinese government argues that resettlement of Tibetan nomads is an economic necessity ostensibly to protect fragile Tibetan grasslands from what it calls “livestock overgrazing”. Behind such a rationale, however, is the implied accusation that nomads are unproductive people – economic liabilities – who stand in the way of China’s modernisation programs in Tibet.

TCHRD has translated and edited an essay by a Tibetan writer living inside Tibet who eloquently refutes Chinese assertions. The writer informs us that nomads are a proud, compassionate, honest, cultured and productive people who crafted their own independent source of living for centuries. The writer, born to nomadic parents, laments the losses nomads are currently suffering, including the loss of precious folk culture, because of their resettlement in urban areas. 

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Cover photographs of the album feature Chakdor (middle in gold-colored shirt wearing dark glasses), Pema Trinley (in maroon shirt on right) and musician Khenrap (left in black shirt)
Cover photo of the album shows Chakdor (standing in the middle in gold-colored shirt), Pema Trinley (in maroon shirt on right) and musician Khenrap (on left in black shirt)

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.

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Tibetan singer Chakdor sentenced to two years in prison. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Tibetan singer Chakdor sentenced to four years in prison. His whereabouts remain unknown.

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.

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Tsondue and Gedun Tsultrim in their prison uniform meet family members and relatives after the court trial
Tsondue and Gedun Tsultrim in their prison uniform meet family members and relatives after the court trial

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.

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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.

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Tibetan students protest in Rebkong County in 2012
Tibetan students protest in Rebkong County in 2012

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.

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The Previous Xth Panchen Lama
The Previous Xth Panchen Lama

Today marks the 18th year of Tibet’s XIth Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima’s disappearance into Chinese custody. One of the most important spiritual leaders of Tibet, the then six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family members were ‘disappeared’ by the Chinese authorities on 17 May 1995, just three days after His Holiness the Dalai Lama recognized him as the reincarnation of the previous Xth Panchen Lama.

TCHRD has translated the lyrics of a song, “Dear Panchen Lama”, sung by the imprisoned Tibetan singer Lolo about the previous Xth Panchen Lama and his ‘disappeared’ reincarnation.

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Front cover of the PAP manual manual on mental health
Front cover of the PAP manual on mental health

TCHRD has received a Chinese language copy of a manual published by the Sichuan Provincial Political Department of the People’s Armed Police Force (PAPF, also called PAP), titled “Guide on Psychiatric Wellbeing While Maintaining Stability” that was circulated among different contingents, detachments and squadrons located at the province, prefecture, and county levels of Sichuan. The manual contains issues raised during a videoconference meeting held by Sichuan Province People’s Armed Police Force regarding the psychological and moral issues arising from stability maintenance work in Tibetan areas. Although the manual was drafted before Xi Jinping’s appointment earlier this year, there is no sign that he will change any of his predecessor’s policies regarding Tibet.

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Sonam Yingyen
Sonam Yingyen

An imprisoned monk from the restive Nyatso Zilkar Monastery in Trindu (Ch: Chenduo) County, Jyekundo (Ch: Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (Qinghai Province) was released on an unknown date last month before the expiration of his prison term due to medical emergency.

According to information received by TCHRD, Sonam Yingyen, 44, became seriously ill soon after he was sentenced to two-year imprisonment in October 2012 in Siling (Ch: Xining) city, capital of Qinghai Province.

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