As Beijing celebrates the Olympics, the lockdown of Tibet worsens

Free Tibet Campaign is today issuing a briefing which documents a series of abuses being committed by the Chinese authorities in Tibet whilst the Games are being staged in China.

The Dalai Lama said on Saturday in an interview with Frances TF1 broadcaster that China was mistreating Tibetans, even during the Games and that often civilians are arrested and tortured very violently, to the point where they die. His comments were reported by AP

The Dalai Lamas comments offer a direct rebuttal to those of Wang Wei, Beijing’s top Olympic official, who said last week at a press briefing: "I did say that the Olympic Games coming to China will help China open up further and reform better. See BBC 

No such opening up has been seen in Tibet where the situation continues to worsen, even while China is staging the Games. This briefing draws together various reports to highlight the Chinese government’s systematic imposition of a complex web of restrictions upon Tibetans.  These heavy-handed restrictions are designed to quash what would be highly embarrassing protests during the Beijing Olympics. It is unlikely that the specific abuses and restrictions documented below would have occurred if Beijing was not staging the Games. In documenting abuses in Tibet caused directly by Chinas staging of the Games, therefore, this briefing offers a direct rebuttal to previous claims by both the Chinese government and the IOC that bringing the Games to China would inevitably lead  to an improvement in human rights throughout the country.

This is by no means a complete picture of the restrictions in Tibet. Since the Chinese authorities removed all foreign journalists from Tibet after freedom demonstrations began and spread in March, it has become increasingly difficult to get information out. Free Tibet Campaign sources who had previously been able to speak regularly with friends and family back in Tibet now find their contacts unwilling to speak.  Mobile phone numbers used by sources for some time have become suddenly unavailable (or are answered by Chinese voices demanding to know the identity of the caller).

However, it is clear from both the primary and secondary source information documented below that the Chinese authorities have implemented a wide-ranging series of measures throughout Tibet in recent weeks in order to prevent protest. Monasteries and lay-people have been targeted with restrictions, particularly tight in those areas most prominent during the Tibetan uprising in the spring.

The harshest crackdown appears to have taken place in the Kandze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of the Kham region of Tibet (Ch: Ganzi prefecture, Sichuan province).

The only way an accurate picture can emerge is for the Chinese government to allow an independent investigation into events throughout Tibet since March 10.

Free Tibet Campaign is calling on Gordon Brown and other world leaders to speak out about Chinas broken human rights promises and to demand an immediate independent investigation into the situation on the ground in Tibet.

Kandze Prefecture

In April, Free Tibet Campaign broke the news of a large demonstration that took place on April 3 in Tongkor town in the Kandze region of Kham in Tibet (Ch: Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province). According to eyewitnesses, armed Chinese security forces opened fire on the peacefully protesting crowds, killing at least eight Tibetans. The killings were widely reported in the international media, including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The South China Morning Post. (read the news reports here)

Tibetans in this region are renowned for their strong pro-independence stance and Free Tibet Campaign continued to receive reports of protests from Kandze long after the Chinese military brought other areas under control. Reports were received of protests by nuns and monks in Kandze town on April 23, May 11, 12 and 13. Then on May 14, 76 nuns from Pungrina nunnery in Kandze county staged a large demonstration in Kandze town, calling for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet. Fifty-two of the nuns were arrested. See Free Tibet report 1 & 2

With protests continuing even after the Sichuan earthquake, it was clear that Kandze remains one of the most restive regions throughout Tibet.

The Chinese authorities have responded to the unrest in Kandze with a huge military build-up and a co-ordinated set of extremely harsh measures designed to intimidate and punish recalcitrant monks and monasteries.

The purpose of this two-pronged strategy is almost certainly to deter and to prevent Tibetans from protesting in the crucial period leading up to and during the Games. Such protest would represent a powerful reminder of Tibetans emphatic rejection of Chinas legitimacy in Tibet and a contradiction of Chinas Olympic propaganda that ethnic minorities in China live in harmony with the Han under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). China has therefore prioritised prevention of such protest in areas deemed sensitive such as Kandze.

Purge of the monasteries in Kandze

On July 28 Free Tibet Campaign released to the international media a document outlining plans for an official purge of monasteries in Kandze. The document was a translation of an article from an official Tibet Daily newspaper which was posted on the Chinese government's Tibet information website (1) on July 18 and the was based on an earlier article in the official Tibet Daily newspaper. Free Tibet Campaign's translation of the document was independently verified by Tsering Topgyal, a Tibetan academic based at the London School of Economics. (For more information click here)

According to the document, monks or nuns charged with quite serious [medium] crimes will undergo serious re-education and will remain in custody until they co-operate by telling the truth, confessing their guilt and submitting a shuyig [self-criticising letter]. they must "sincerely and voluntarily "tell the truth.

Severe punishment is prescribed for monasteries considered to have led protests in March and April. At monasteries where between 10% and 30% of monks took part in protests all religious activities at the monastery will be halted. Movements of monks will be closely monitored. The story was reported by The Daily Telegraph:

While Free Tibet Campaign has only been able to document such anti-monastic measures being taken in Kandze Prefecture, the proclamations of Chinese officials in Tibet indicate a more widespread intensification of the crackdown on monks and monasteries. In an article published in The Sunday Times of July 13 under the headline Olympic Crackdown: Chinas secret plot to tame Tibet , Lie Que, the Head of Propaganda in Tibet, was quoted as saying: "We must clean out the monasteries and strengthen the administrative committees". The Sunday Times cited the official Tibet Daily as the source for the quote.

The same edition of the Sunday Times reported that around one 1000 monks from Lhasa’s main monasteries remained under armed guard four months after Tibet’s March uprising while the monasteries implement their harshest crackdown on religion in decades. (read the article)

Military build-up in Kandze

A Taiwanese- American travelled to the Tibetan region of Kham (Ch province: Sichuan) at the end of July, just two weeks before the Beijing Olympics were due to start. Wen Yan-King, 24, visited Kandze and other areas, hearing about and witnessing herself a huge military presence in the area as well as a climate of extreme fear amongst Tibetans as the Chinese authorities put the region into lockdown prior to the Olympics. Wen was able to travel to regions off-limits to foreign journalists as she travelled as a Taiwanese. (Taiwanese are considered Chinese by the Chinese authorities.) She described what she saw to Rebecca Novick, Executive Producer of the Tibet Connection radio programme . Novick’s interview with Wen has recently been published by the Huffington Post:

In the Huffington Post interview Wen described the current situation in Kandze:

According to the article, Wen was entered regions that hadn't seen a foreign journalist in months. A number of places she went were officially off-limits to all foreigners, but because Chinese people are taught that Taiwan is part of China from grade school the local authorities tended to regard her as a Chinese national. Still, her driver took back roads to avoid the checkpoints that became more numerous the further west she went. But it was in Kandze (Chinese: Ganzi) where the atmosphere of intimidation that Wen had experienced earlier took on a whole new dimension.

Wen is quoted saying: There's a good reason that foreigners aren't allowed in these places. It looks like a war zone. In Kandze the police are in the middle of the sidewalks. They're sitting in helmets holding their guns and riot shields in rows of 10 or 15. They are outside convenience stores under blue tarps every half a block, on both sides of the road--watching. They're up on raised metal posts with cut-out windows--watching. I couldn't walk anywhere without dozens of armed police staring at me. I've never seen so many police and military personnel in one town in my life. Nor have I experienced this kind of heart pounding fear before."

Military build-up outside Kandze

Lithang

Wen witnessed other areas in Kham (Ch: province: Sichuan) which had seen similarly dramatic increases in troop numbers as the authorities resolutely and systematically attempted to prevent any trace of protest in Tibets most sensitive regions:

According to the article, in Lithang, in the Tibetan area of Kham, at an altitude of 13,000 feet, she counted as many as seven police stations in a half-mile radius.

Wen said: "The local Tibetans told me that these police stations had sprung up after the protests in March. If there's a way to instil fear in people, this is the way to do it. You're not going to go out in the street and protest when you see 50 armed police to the left and right of you." Tibetans in Lithang also told her that five people had recently disappeared and no one knew what happened to them.

Lithang is considered especially sensitive by the Chinese authorities following large-scale protests there in August 2007 by Tibetan nomads following the arrest of a nomad, Runggye Adak. Adak was arrested for making an impassioned plea for the return of the Dalai Lama in front of officials and a huge crowd at the Lithang Horse Festival. (Adak was subsequently imprisoned for eight years for his protest.)

Ngaba County

As Free Tibet Campaign revealed on August 10, Chinese troops are suspected of shooting two women Ngaba town in Ngaba county in the southern Amdo region (Ch town: Aba; province: Sichuan). Eyewitnesses in Ngaba report that troop levels in Ngaba rose from 2,000 before August to around 10,000 in the first week of August. Troops are manning checkpoints on every main street in Ngaba and enforcing a curfew of 7pm on the town, making it practically impossible for lay people to come in to the town. Tibetans in Ngaba have reported that the troops are due to stay in the town until the end of the Beijing Olympics on August 24.

A highly reliable source in Ngaba has told Free Tibet Campaign that a climate of extreme fear exists in Ngaba. A strict curfew has been imposed on the town and military checkpoints set up at most crossroads.Tibetans are afraid to talk to anyone from outside the town due to the heavy troop presence and surveillance. Tibetans in Ngaba believe that the increase in troop numbers is designed to intimidate Tibetans in a region known for its strong cultural identity and to deter Tibetans from protesting during the Olympics.

Monks at the nearby monastery are forced to obtain a special permit from their work team to leave. A work team, responsible for patriotic education, has been permanently stationed in the monastery since the Tibetan uprising in March. The requirement for the permit means that the monks of Kirti monastery are effectively confined to the monastery as permits are extremely difficult to obtain.

For a fuller account of the troop build-up in Ngaba, and the shooting of two Tibetan women, based on eyewitness sources, please see Free Tibet Campaign’s press release.

Like Kandze, which witnessed Chinese armed security firing at Tibetan protesters in Tongkor town, Ngaba also witnessed a terrible massacre on March 16. Chinese armed troops fired into a crowd of protesting Tibetans in Ngaba (Ch: Aba town), killing at least eight men and women. It is likely that troop build-ups have occurred in Ngaba and Kandze as these are regions where feelings are still inflamed following the March-April protests and are regions Chinese authorities considered most likely to protest during the Games.

Kumbum monastery

A reporter from AFP's bureau in Beijing very recently travelled to Kumbum monastery in the Amdo region of Tibet (Ch: Qinghai province). Kumbum has always attracted strict surveillance from the Chinese authorities due to its strong association with the Panchen Lama. Tibet’s 11th Panchen Lama, recognised by the Dalai Lama, was abducted in 1995 at the age of six and his whereabouts continue to be one of the Chinese states most closely guarded secrets.

The article speaks of a very real impact of the Games on the lives of the monks there and reveals that the only several monks who spoke out did so with great caution. They described restrictions and security measures aimed at limiting their movements and communication around the Olympic Games period.

One of the monks told the AFP reporter that they would not be allowed to have access email until after the Olympics. Read the full article here.

Ends

For mroe informaion contact Matt Whitticase (Bangkok) on +66 844 549 764 or Stephanie Brigden (London) on +44 7324 4605 or +44 7971 479 515

Notes to editors:

(1) http:zw.tibet.cn/news