More than 1,000 Tibetans remain disappeared
 

On 30 August 2009, International Day of the Disappeared, the whereabouts of more than 1,000 Tibetans, who were detained following the Spring 2008 protests, remain unaccounted for. The Disappeared are at serious risk of torture and Free Tibet has grave concerns for their well-being.

The Chinese Government has failed to provide accurate figures of the number of Tibetans arrested since 10 March 2008, when protests against Chinese rule began in Lhasa and spread across the Tibetan plateau. This month, the UN (1) took China to task about the ill-treatment of Tibetans. In response (2) Chinese officials accounted for Tibetans arrested in Lhasa, but failed to account for more than 1,200 Tibetans detained during the 2008 Spring protests from the other Tibetan areas.

In the absence of any independent inquiry into last Spring’s protests, verifying actual numbers of disappeared is extremely difficult. Estimations of more than 1,000 arrested Tibetans are likely to be a gross underestimation as they only refer to arrests in a small number (9) of the 49 counties where protests had taken place.

“Hundreds of Tibetans who were rounded up during and after the Spring protests have been put beyond the protection of the law. It allows Chinese authorities to torture and mistreat detainees with impunity behind closed doors” Stephanie Brigden, Free Tibet’s Director said. “In Tibet disappearances have entrenched a climate of fear and intimidation. We are seeing an increasing tendency of self censorship amongst Tibetans, one the few remaining strategies Tibetans have to protect themselves and their families.”

Next week (3) the UK Minister of State, Ivan Lewis MP, is leaving for an official visit to Tibet and China. Ivan Lewis’s visit will be the first UK Ministerial visit to Tibet since the Spring 2008 protests. “During his visit the Minister must raise publicly UK Government concerns for the hundreds of missing Tibetans and demand the Chinese Administration accounts for their whereabouts and legal status. In view of the importance of this visit, public silence on this issue will be interpreted as UK Government sanctioning gross human rights violations against the Tibetan people.”

Ends

For further information, please contact:

Stephanie Brigden, Director

t +44 (0)20 7324 4605 / +44 (0)7530 528264 and email: stephanie@freetibet.org

Notes to the Editor:

(1) In considering China’s tenth to thirteenth periodic report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s (CERD)  during its 75^th session’s (3 - 28 August 2009) the Committee requested “information on the measures taken to protect members of certain ethnic groups, including the Uyghur and Tibetans, from ill-treatment by State officials. What guarantees exist to ensure that allegations of such ill-treatment, including with regard to the detention and excessive use of force against ethnic Tibetans during the March 2008 events in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and neighbouring areas, are promptly, impartially and independently investigated.”

(2) In a written response to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on 10 August 2009, China stated that 1231 Tibetans in total had been released since April last year. However this fails to account for the estimated 1200 Tibetans arrested in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures last year and whose status still remain unaccounted for.

Based on a table produced by the US Congressional Executive Committee on China, produced with reference to official Chinese sources http://www.cecc.gov/pages/virtualAcad/index.phpd?PHPSESSID=cf73572b5a0849a0f20c2d81c51d4f72#id107985 it seems that China’s reference to those released only refers to the situation affecting those individuals detained in Lhasa. China has not attempted to account for the numbers arrested from the other regions, which were reported in Chinese state media last year and summarized by CECC below.

Official Chinese Sources: Detention, Surrender, and Release of Alleged "Rioters"

(3) Ivan Lewis, the recently appointed Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will be travelling to China on 6 September and will spend approximately one and a half days in Tibet (Lhasa).