A documentary film on the state of the freedom of expression in Tibet will premiere at the ‘Human Rights Human Wrongs’ (‘HRHW’) film festival in Oslo, Norway this week marking the launch of the international leg of the ‘Banned Expression: Support Free Speech in Tibet’ campaign.
The documentary film titled ‘Banned Expression in Tibet’ is produced by Voice of Tibet (VOT) radio service. The first screening of the documentary will be held at the “HRHW” film festival, a one of its kind film festival in the Scandinavia, organized by the Oslo Dokumentarkino (Oslo Documentary Cinema) in collaboration with many human rights organizations and institutions.
A 2001 photo of Geshe Ngawang Jamyang who died in police custody less than a month after his arrest in December 2013.
On 28 January 2014 the Intergovernmental Expert Group on the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners will meet for four days in Brasilia, Brazil. The United Nations General Assembly created the Expert Group to update the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (SMR), which was drafted in the 1950s. The SMR is a set of rules that outline good principles and practices for the treatment of prisoners and management of prison facilities. The SMR allow for variation depending on legal, social, economic, and geographic conditions. The SMR is not legally binding but it has been widely accepted and helped shaped many States’ national legislation, including those of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The original SMR prohibited the use of physical punishments and all forms of cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. At the meeting in Brazil the Expert Group will consider proposed changes to the SMR that will increase transparency in prisons.[1] The proposed revisions require deaths during detention or soon after of a prisoner be investigated by an impartial body to ensure that the deaths were not caused by prison officials.
In the People’s Republic of China, prisoners are often subjected to physical punishments, torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. When Geshe Sonam Phuntsok[2] was sent to prison for initiating a life-long prayer offering for the Dalai Lama, he was a healthy 48-year-old monk. When his family visited him in prison, Geshe Sonam Phuntsok had lost weight, was semiconscious, and was unable to move properly. When he was released five years later, Geshe Sonam Phuntsok was hospitalized. Geshe Sonam Phuntsok’s treatment in prison left his body broken and he died less than three and a half years after his release.
On 26 December 2013, China held a grand celebration to commemorate the 120th birthday of Mao Zedong (毛澤東). This involves a careful balance for Xi Jinping and other members of the Chinese Communist Party, who hope to exploit Mao Zedong’s rhetoric and status without endorsing his policies or ideology, both of which are contrary to the PRC’s current policies and announced reforms.
In Tibet, there is no contradiction between Mao Zedong’s legacy and his policies. Both were brutal and led to mass arrests, death, and destruction in Tibet. While the PRC quietly distanced itself from some of Mao Zedong’s worst policies after his death in 1976, many continue to cast a shadow over Tibet.
For the next 26 years since PRC’s invasion of Tibet in 1949, Tibetans were subjected to horrific, inhumane conditions. On 23 May 1980, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) publicly apologized for the failed policies that made conditions in Tibet worse than in 1959 and that the then-party general secretary Hu Yaobang accused the Chinese cadres of throwing the money entrusted to them to help Tibetans into the Lhasa River. Despite this acknowledgement, many of the most brutal and destructive policies from Mao’s rule still continue today.
PAP soldiers arrive in Diru County in October 2013 to clamp down on protests staged by Tibetans. (Photo: RFA)
Earlier this year, TCHRD released a manualfrom the People’s Armed Police (PAP) that described how many members of the PAP are suffering from nightmares and flashbacks as a result of the treatment they inflicted upon Tibetans in 2008. Now, a videoof eight senior PAP firefighters beating five young recruits in Inner Mongolia has gone viral in the PRC.
The over 15-minute long video shows the young PAP officers being beaten while forced to stand at attention. They are slapped, punched and kicked. One victim was kicked by two of his abusers while he lay on the ground. Others are kneed, knocked against a wall, and have their heads slammed against the wall. The senior members of the PAP also beat the victims with belts and sticks that they broke over the victim’s heads. After seven minutes some of the victims clearly had trouble getting back to their feet and standing.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s meeting with Mandela in 1996 in South Africa. (Photo: ANC Archives)
Nelson Mandela passed away on 5 December 2013. His state funeral on Sunday, 15 December is a time for the world to gather and remember Mandela’s life and legacy. Mandela will be forever remembered as the first black president of South Africa and a champion of non-violence who was instrumental not only in ending apartheid but also for uniting South Africa behind the rule of law, constitutionalism, and racial reconciliation after decades of minority rule by a racist regime. This legacy and the success of the “freedom struggle” against apartheid is an inspiration for Tibetans who live under a discriminatory regime that exists above the law and imposes its will through the heavy-handed use of force.
Cover of the music album, Ring of Unity, shows a photo of singer Trinley Tsekar
Two Tibetan singers have become the latest targets of China’s crackdown in Diru (Ch: Biru) County in Nagchu (Ch: Naqu) Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
Trinley Tsekar, 22, and Gonpo Tenzin, 25 have been arrested in separate incidents in late November 2013 in Diru County, according to information received by TCHRD.
Singer Trinley Tsekar was arrested on around 20 November 2013 when he visited the local driving school to get his driver’s license. Sources with contacts in Diru said Trinley Tsekar was arrested because he had distributed a DVD that contained songs he had sung on Tibetan identity, culture and language. One of his most famous DVDs is titled Ring of Unity (Tib: Thundil ki Along). Sources also said Trinley Tsekar was a well-known singer who used to express the pain and suffering of Tibetan people through his songs. He hails from Serkhang Village in Diru Township. His family members including his aged mother, Yangchen Dolker, wife and a child, have no idea where he is being held and in what condition.
‘Banned Expression: Support Free Speech in Tibet’ is an awareness campaign focussing on the Right to Freedom of Opinion, Expression and Information in Tibet.
Over a hundred Tibetan writers, poets, artists, intellectuals and cultural figures have been arrested, tortured and imprisoned since the 2008 uprising in Tibet. By daring to refute China’s official narrative of events surrounding the 2008 Uprising, these courageous Tibetans represent a significant new challenge to the Chinese authorities.
China is implementing mass surveillance and propaganda campaigns under the rubric of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s “mass line” policy in Tibet. New regulations on the internet and phone use have been implemented since 2011 to block information and censor communication. Book and journals are banned; websites shut down and online contents deleted and censored in real time by armies of Chinese government censors. China has vowed again to block all images, information and teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Tibet by setting “nets in the sky” and “traps on the ground” .
China’s armed police surround non-violent Tibetan protesters in Shagchu Township
China has disappeared a Tibetan father of three and arrested 10 other Tibetans in an ongoing crackdown in Diru (Ch: Biru) County in Nagchu (Ch: Naqu) Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
According to information received by TCHRD, a Tibetan father of three, Tenzin Rangdol, 34, was arrested on the morning of 18 October 2013 and is being held incommunicado by the police in Shagchu (Ch: Xiaqu) Town in Diru County. He was arrested on his way home in Gochu Village no. 4 after walking his children to school. Tenzin Rangdol’s wife is Tsering Pelzom, 26, and the couple has three young children.
The next day, on 19 October 2013, Tenzin Rangdol’s arrest triggered an overnight protest outside the local government office in Shagchu Town, following which more than 10 protesters hailing from Gochu Village were arrested. Those arrested include Shodhar, Dorgyal (perhaps a shortened form of Dorjee Gyaltsen or Dorjee Gyalpo), Lhamo, Kelsang Namdol, Mengyal, and an unidentified son of Mrs Sangmo of Gochu Village.
Chaos outside the County Primary school in Diru County.
China’s domestic security forces including the armed police and the army have engaged in beatings, and detention of 40 Tibetans even as local government and party authorities used threats and intimidation tactics to enforce the so-called “mass-line” policy in Diru (Ch: Biru) County in Nagchu (Ch: Naqu) County in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
Touted by the Chinese government as a means to bring the party leadership closer to the needs and concerns of the masses, the reality is the policy is aimed at bringing every Tibetan under the direct surveillance of the party’s human and technological surveillance machinery.
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy commemorates the 53rd anniversary of Tibetan Democracy Day, by releasing a report titled Ending Impunity: Crimes Against Humanity in Tibet. On 2 September, Tibetans all over the world celebrate the Tibetan Democracy Day. This latest report from TCHRD focuses on international criminal justice and argues that the conduct of high-level Chinese government officials in Tibet constitutes ‘crimes against humanity’.
This report demonstrates that even though the International Criminal Court (ICC) lacks jurisdiction to investigate the situation in Tibet, the Party officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have committed crimes against humanity in Tibet. The ICC’s lack of jurisdiction does not change the nature of crimes committed in Tibet. The inability of the ICC to investigate the situation in Tibet does not mean there is no role for international criminal justice in Tibet. Recognising that international crimes defined by the Rome Statute have been committed in Tibet gives international actors powerful legal and rhetorical tools outside of the ICC.
Armed police making their way down to beat, teargas and shoot Tibetans who had come to celebrate Dalai Lama’s birthday.
China has launched a crackdown on local Tibetans who had organised a religious ceremony to observe the birthday of Tibetan spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama last month in Tawu (Ch: Dawu/Daofu) County in Kardze (Ch: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the Tibetan province of Kham.
On 6 July 2013, China’s People’s Armed Police (PAP) beat and fired teargas and live ammunition on hundreds of Tibetans who had gathered near Machen Pomra Mountain in Tawu to offer the ritual of incense-burning to celebrate the birthday of the Dalai Lama. At least 14 known Tibetans were injured in the firing and others were detained.
Since then, local authorities in Tawu have intensified surveillance and monitoring of local Tibetans and announced strict punitive measures against local officials and cadres for failing to ‘maintain stability’. Local authorities have vowed to crack down on any signs of ‘separatist’ sentiments and activities by implementing five major ‘stability maintenance’ measures in Tawu County, according to a report published in the official Ganzi Daily newspaper. (Also click here for related report in Chinese language)
A documentary film on the state of the freedom of expression in Tibet will premiere at the ‘Human Rights Human Wrongs’ (‘HRHW’) film festival in Oslo, Norway this week marking the launch of the international leg of the ‘Banned Expression: Support Free Speech in Tibet’ campaign.
