Tibetans Face Arrests and Tough Sentences for Spreading “Rumours”
27 December, 2008 — C.A. Yeung
Just in the last few days, more news has come out of China about further arrests and jail sentences of Tibetans for alleged “rumour mongering”. The unusually tough sentences, in particular, indicate Beijing’s determination to block news about the 3.14 Lhasa crackdowns. According to Beijing’s official version of events, the March riot in Lhasa involved Tibetans taking part in acts of assault, vandalism, arson and looting against Han and Hui nationals. Other versions of events, including attempts to analyse the cause of such violence, had been condemned as “biased reports by western media”.
ABC Radio Australia News confirmed that a Tibetan who worked for a Melbourne-based medical group to stop the spread of HIV in Tibet had been jailed for life for passing on information about the situation in the region to the outside world.
BBC News also reported on Christmas day that 59 Tibetans had been arrested. Some of them were accused of downloading “reactionary” songs from the Internet for distribution. They were also investigated for spreading rumours and for trying to stir up racial hatred and incite violence. As pointed out by the BBC report, the term “rumours” is often a euphemism for anti-government views in China.
A little bird tells me that the “reactionary” music is possibly the recordings of a New York-based Rap singer Namgyal Yeshi. Here is how one of the songs No Next Time starts:
The time is running and running,
I am getting older and older,
If we don’t fight back this time,
There might be no next time, yo!
The rest of the lyric is in the Tibetan language. You can find a Chinese translation HERE. There is also a recording of the song performed at a pro-Tibetan demonstration in New York on 10 March 2008:
A Chinese county has rescinded a rule urging its government workers to smoke more in order to boost tax income.
The authorities in Gong’an county had told civil servants and teachers to smoke 230,000 packs of the locally-made Hubei brand each year.
Those who did not smoke enough or used brands from other provinces or overseas faced being fined or even fired.
But the government has now backtracked from the policy, after a report in a local newspaper generated criticism.
China has an estimated 350 million smokers
U-turn
A million people die from smoking-related diseases in China every year, but the local authorities were initially undeterred by the health risks.
“The regulation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax,” Chen Nianzu, a member of the cigarette market supervision team in Gong’an county, Hubei province, told the Global Times newspaper.
The paper said the measure was probably an attempt to shore up the Hubei brands against tough competition from cigarettes produced in neighbouring Hunan province.
On Tuesday, the local government’s website published a statement saying “We decided to remove this edict”, but declined to elaborate further.
Smoking is deep-rooted in Chinese culture - where more than half of all male doctors smoke - and there is still a general lack of awareness about the impact on health.
But the authorities have recently started encouraging smokers to kick the habit - even imposing a ban on smoking in public buildings in the capital, Beijing, in the run up to the 2008 Olympic games.
Dharamsala, April 16: China is warning Dutch MPs not to invite the Dalai Lama to visit parliament when he comes to the Netherlands on June 4 and 5, according to a Dutch media report.
The government in Beijing has already made it clear it disapproves of the Tibetan spiritual leader’s Dutch trip, Radio Netherland reported Thursday.
The report said the Chinese ambassador in The Hague has now officially written to the country’s parliament objecting to the Dalai Lama being received by the speaker, Gerdi Verbeet, and other MPs. The letter says the move would not be conducive to good relations “in this time of economic crisis”, the report added.
China sent military troops to occupy Tibet in 1950 and, nine years later, the Dalai Lama fled to India. The exiled Tibetan leader is now seeking a meaningful autonomy for Tibet within the constitutional framework of the People’s Republic of China.
Dharamsala, March 20: Tibet’s Government in exile Friday released, what it calls, rare video footages showing Chinese paramilitary police resorting to extreme brutality on Tibetan protestors after last year’s March unrest against Chinese rule.
One of the three footages from a combined video release, which was screened at a press conference here today, showed Chinese police beating several Tibetans captives as they lay down handcuffed and tied.
“This is one of the rare footages of Chinese police beating Tibetans who participated in the massive and widespread protests that erupted throughout Tibet since 10 March 2008,” said the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR) of the Central Tibetan Administration in its press statement.
“We are told that these beating of protestors took place in or near Lhasa after 14 March 2008,” the statement added.
Thupten Samphel, information secretary, and Sonam N. Dagpo, international relations secretary, of the DIIR, presided over the press conference.
Describing the footages as being “very disturbing”, Samphel said the acts of brutality violated the “international norms regarding treatment of captives.”
Death of Tendar
Still image from the footage shows Chinese police beating Tibetan protestors as they lay down handcuffed and tied
A second footage is of a young Tibetan named Tendar, who succumbed to his injuries after he was brutally beaten and tortured by Chinese police officials.
Tendar, a staff in the China Mobile company, met his evil fate on March 14, 2008, after he tried to stop Chinese authorities from beating a lone monk while on his way to his office.
Tendar later suffered inhumane treatments at the hands of Chinese authorities, DIIR statement said.
According to the press statement, Tendar was “fired at, burned with cigarettes butts, pierced with a nail in his right foot, and severely beaten with an electric baton.”
The footage showing the “wounds and the bruise marks visible on his body is a testimony of the brutality he was subjected to by the Chinese authorities,” the statement said.
Tendar was further “denied basic medical care” at the military hospital and was later shifted to the TAR (Tibetan Autonomous Region) People’s Hospital in Lhasa.
File photo of Tendar. He succumbed to his injuries on 19 June, 2008.
Doctors at the hospital removed “about 2.5 kgs of his body part” in order to clean out the “rotten wounds” caused by prolonged delay in medical treatment.
“Due to covering his wounds with polythene, his wounds began to rot as clearly seen from the footage,” the press statement said.
According to the statement, despite efforts made by his family in meeting huge medical expenses, doctor’s at the people’s hospital failed to bring improvement to Tendar’s ailing body.
He died due to his injuries on June 19, 2008.
When his corpse was offered to the vultures according to the tradition, the statement said a nail was found in his right foot.
Tendar was “denied basic medical care” at Chinese military hospital and was later shifted to the TAR People’s Hospital. He died due to his injuries on 19 June, 2008.
Brutality under “virtual martial Law”
Third footage shows the heavy Para-military presence in Lhasa in the run up to the 50th Anniversary of March 10 Tibetan National Uprising this month.
“Lhasa and all other areas of Tibet still remain under virtual martial law,” the exile government said in the statement.
After unrest erupted in March 2008, Beijing swiftly poured more troops into TAR and Tibetans areas in surrounding provinces to smother any protests.
The exile Tibetan government says about 220 Tibetans have died, over 1294 have been seriously injured and more than 1000 have disappeared since the crackdown last year. It says over 5600 people have been arrested and 290 are sentenced so far.
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the failed uprising that sent the Dalai Lama into exile, paramilitary police and soldiers swarmed cities and villages in Tibet to quell possible repeat of last year’s unrest.
China has repeatedly denied the use of torture in Tibet, and has maintained that Tibet has remained relatively calm in recent months.
In November 2008, the Chinese Foreign Ministry rejected the U.N. panel’s report on the widespread use of torture by Chinese police, calling the report as “untrue and slanderous” and accused the committee members as being “prejudiced” against China.
However, the DIIR’s press statement says, the stunning footages received from Tibet “testify to what is truly happening in Tibet as recently as 2008.”
Following last year’s unrest and the crackdown that followed, Dagpo said, Chinese authorities in Tibet continued resorting to “brutal beatings and torture of the captive Tibetans.”
“We are waiting to receive more such footages in future,” Dagpo said, responding to a media inquiry during the press conference held here at the premises of the Tibetan Government-in-exile.
