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The Missing 1000 |
March and April 2008 saw the largest protests in Tibet for 50 years. China’s response was swift and brutal. Today a climate of fear reigns across Tibet. It is estimated that over 6,000 Tibetans were detained in connection with the protests. The fate of over 1,000 people remains unknown, rendering them extremely vulnerable to torture.
The Numbers detained
Lack of official information combined with severe restrictions on communication from Tibet render it an impossible task to determine the exact number of Tibetans still in detention.
The Chinese government has failed to disclose relevant figures and reports by the Chinese state media reveal statistical discrepancies between the numbers of those reported detained, released and charged. According to a China Daily report on 21 June 2008, by 9 April 2008 Chinese authorities had released 3,072 of the 4,434 people detained whom officials characterised as ‘rioters’. According to analysis by the American Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) the current status of at least 1,200 Tibetans remains unknown.
“Unless Chinese authorities have released without charge a very high proportion of the Tibetans
reportedly detained as a result of peaceful activity or expression on or after March 10, 2008, the resulting surge in the number of Tibetan political prisoners may prove to be the largest increase in such prisoners that has occurred under China’s current Constitution and Criminal Law.” CECC, 2008 Annual Report, page 183
Neither Free Tibet nor other organisations are able to confirm the current number of prisoners as independent media and human rights monitoring agencies are still being refused access to Tibet. A culture of fear, and lengthy sentences for those found guilty of providing information to journalists or NGOs, have contributed to self-censorship.
Fate of The Missing 1000
During March-April 2008, most of those detained were arrested for non-violent acts of dissent. Tsering Tsomo, a 27 year old nun, was arrested for distributing leaflets calling for the return of the Dalai Lama in Kandze Town. She was severely beaten by police before being taken away. Tibetan nomad Sangey Tashi was arrested for waving the Tibetan flag. Monks at the Jokhang and Labrang Monasteries who spoke openly to journalists about the lack of human rights in Tibet remain missing.
Other Tibetans languish in prisons for simply having produced and distributed flyers calling for freedom, sending information on the situation in Tibet abroad, flying the banned Tibetan flag, possessing books and videotapes of the Dalai Lama or downloading the Tibetan national anthem onto mobile phones.
Many are detained for unclear reasons:
Update 25 March 2010: According to reports Ngakchung was sentenced to seven years imprisonment by the Kandze People's Intermediate People's Court. There is no information on the exact date of the trial and sentencing, under what charges he was convicted and whether he was given any legal rights guarantee under the Chinese constitution and international laws. Ngakchung was sentenced after being held without charge for nearly two years.
Ngakchung (Chinese: A Qiong), a thirty-eight year old monk from Serthar has been missing since July 2008. Ngakchung is a monk at Serthar Larung, one of the largest monasteries in Tibet.
Ngakchung, along with two other relatives Taphun and Gudrak, was arrested on 7 July by a group of plain clothed policeman from the Sichuan Province Police Bureau while he was leaving a restaurant in Chengdu City. Several eye-witnesses saw the incident. All of them are monks at Serthar Larung Monastery.
Three weeks later Taphun and Gudrak were released in Chengdu without any charges. Their health was in good condition despite having undergone intense interrogation concerning their possible with the Spring Protest of 2008. They did not see Ngakchung in detention during this time.
With concern for Ngakchung’s well-being increasing, relatives and various other members of Ngakchung’s monastery began inquiring about his whereabouts to the county and prefecture governments as well as the provincial police but were denied information.
Three months after the arrest Serthar County Police confirmed to Ngakchung’s mother that he was held for allegedly passing information outside Tibet about the March 2008 protests. They told his mother that they will not give out information on his whereabouts until Ngakchung confesses.
Evidence shows that individuals are most likely to suffer torture during the initial stages of detention, when the detainee is outside the protection of formal legal procedures. Those who were released earlier in 2008 spoke of the horrendous abuse they suffered when they were first detained.
TAKE ACTION by writing to the Chinese Government about the missing Tibetans
Tortured to death
Ten Tibetans are reported to have died as a result of the torture they suffered in detention in 2008. Some died in custody while others were released in a near-death state, thus avoiding cases of death in detention.
- Nyichang, a 38-year-old woman, was arrested on 18 March 2008. Her ‘crime’ was removing a signboard from the local Chinese administrative office during peaceful protests on 16 and 17 March 2008. During her time in detention she was subjected to severe abuse. When she was released from prison her body was covered in bruises and she could not speak or eat without immediately vomiting. Following her release she was denied medical treatment at the local County hospital and as a result Nyichang died on 17 April 2008, leaving behind four children.
Read Free Tibet's report on torture
Learn more about Free Tibet's Stop the Torture campaign
The Imprisoned
According to reports by the Chinese state media and sources in Tibet, China has sentenced more than 190 Tibetans for their alleged roles in protests last spring. The youngest of these is believed to be 16 years old, the oldest 81. Prison terms, including life imprisonment, are handed down for ‘crimes’ such as passing information about specific cases to foreign contacts or printing banned materials. The sentences are extremely severe and demonstrate China’s determination to deter Tibetans from further protests.
While the Chinese media reported on the trials of those who were allegedly involved in violent protests in Lhasa, they remain silent about over one hundred Tibetans who have been sentenced for peaceful protests.
Scores of Tibetans have been sentenced in closed trials throughout Tibet without access to lawyers. It is common for family members not to be informed of their relative’s status until the day of the trial. Large numbers of Tibetans were tried in Kandze County where more protests erupted than anywhere else in Tibet.
Sentences were severe, including seven life sentences.
“At no time since Tibetans resumed political activism in 1987 has the magnitude and severity of consequences to Tibetans (named and unnamed) who protested against the Chinese government been as great as it is now …” Congressional Executive Commission on China, 2008 Annual Report
On 27 October 2008 five Tibetans were given extremely harsh sentences in Lhasa for allegedly providing information on protests to Tibet support groups. The sentences for “espionage" and "illegally sending intelligence abroad" ranged from prison terms of 8 years to life imprisonment. The unprecedented severity of the sentences for passing information about Tibet indicates a ruthless determination by the Chinese government to block news on the current crackdown in Tibet.
 Wangdu, a 41 year old HIV education officer working for an NGO in Lhasa, was sentenced to life imprisonment in October 2008 on charges of espionage. |  Norzin Wangmo, a 30 year-old Tibetan woman, was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for sending emails and telephoning contacts outside Tibet about the situation inside Tibet. |
The murdered
In addition to over 1,000 Tibetans whose fate is unknown, the deaths of at least 120 Tibetans who were murdered remains unacknowledged by the Chinese Government, placing these victims of this tragedy alongside those who are missing and unaccounted for.
At least 120 Tibetans were killed when Chinese security personnel fired at unarmed demonstrators, while others died after suffering torture in detention. China denies using lethal force against the protesters and, despite requests from the UN, has failed to conduct an investigation into the killings.
The Chinese Government MUST:
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Definition of the term 'disappeared'
In the United Nations' 'Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance', the term is described as follows:
'Enforced disappearances occur, in the sense that persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.'
Article 7
No circumstances whatsoever, whether a threat of war, a state of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked to justify enforced disappearances.
Article 10
° Any person deprived of liberty shall be held in an officially recognized place of detention and, in conformity with national law, be brought before a judicial authority promptly after detention.
° Accurate information on the detention of such persons and their place or places of detention, including transfers, shall be made promptly available to their family members, their counsel or to any other persons having a legitimate interest in the information unless a wish to the contrary has been manifested by the persons concerned.
° An official up-to-date register of all persons deprived of their liberty shall be maintained in every place of detention. Additionally, each State shall take steps to maintain similar centralized registers. The information contained in these registers shall be made available to the persons mentioned in the preceding paragraph, to any judicial or other competent and independent national authority and to any other competent authority entitled under the law of the State concerned or any international legal instrument to which a State concerned is a party, seeking to trace the whereabouts of a detained person.
A list of known detainees is compiled by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD)
