Human Rights Worsening in Tibet under New Chinese Leadership: Freedom House Report

[atatwolf]

DHARAMSHALA: Freedom House, a prominent US-based advocacy group that conducts research on democracy, political freedom and human rights, has published its latest report on China, documenting an increase in repression and suppression of human rights under the new leadership of President Xi Jinping in Tibet and other parts of China.

In the report entitled ‘The Politburo’s Predicament’ released on Tuesday, the rights group highlights the huge resources that China concentrates on the subject of Tibet and Xinjiang.

“The suppression of antigovernment protests and ethnic clashes in Tibet and Xinjiang beginning in 2008 and 2009 included new rounds of abductions, imprisonment, torture, and executions, in some instances affecting hundreds or thousands of people at a time,” the report said.

“Official statistics gathered by the Duihua Foundation illustrate a dramatic rise in the number of trials and indictments for “endangering state security” beginning in 2008, with many of those punished believed to be Tibetans and Uighurs.”

The report also noted the Chinese government’s harsh response to the wave of Tibetan self-immolation protests that has swept Tibet since 2009.

“As self-immolations reached their peak in November 2012 and then continued periodically, official reprisals for those involved intensified. In a form of collective punishment, a regulation allowed those found to have assisted a self-immolator to be charged with homicide.”

“A late 2013 crackdown in one county alone led to at least 58 detentions and 15 prison sentences of up to 18 years. At least two monks, including a popular religious leader, were beaten to death in custody in 2013 within weeks of their detention,” Freedom House said in their report.

However, despite the Chinese government’s intensified repression, the rights group argues that resistance from the Tibetan people towards government efforts to exert control has intensified.

“For persecuted religious and ethnic groups, the risks of even quiet resistance are significant given the harsh repression they face. Yet such resistance is widespread. Large numbers of Tibetans continue to keep an image of the Dalai Lama in their possession despite the threat of punishment and “patriotic education” campaigns that urge them to denounce their revered spiritual leader,” the report said.

Some of the prominent topics targeted for censorship in China include a contingent of long-standing taboos, noted the Freedom House report. Taboo topics included the writings of prominent dissidents, unfavorable coverage of CCP leaders, calls for greater autonomy in Tibet and Xinjiang, Taiwanese independence and democracy, and the Falun Gong spiritual group.

 Central Tibetan Administration

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  Representational image.

The Tibetan students of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad University in Gujarat held a photography exhibition with an aim to make people aware of the prevailing conditions in Tibet and that of its people.

"The exhibition is in three parts. The one part is the India and Tibet relations. We want to say that India and Tibet has a very long-tide since from 7th century," Vangdu said.

"Second part of the exhibition is the self-immolation in Tibet that has been taking place since 2008. And then the third part of the exhibition is the three commitments of Dalai Lama. We are exhibiting these three parts to the Indian students to make aware of the Tibet issue, Tibet culture and what's going inside Tibet due to the Chinese repressive policy," he added.

The Central Tibetan Administration in-exile in Dharamsala has repeatedly urged the Chinese authorities in Tibet to address the genuine grievances of the Tibetan people to alleviate their sufferings and to end its political repression, religious persecution, cultural assimilation, economic marginalization and environmental destruction in Tibet, which remain the main causes of the Tibetan self-immolation protests.

In 2008, months before the Olympic Games in Beijing, demonstrations about the perceived lack of freedoms for Tibetans broke out across the region, eliciting a brutal crackdown. In 2012, more than 80 Tibetans staged such fiery protests, according to rights groups. Most of them are believed to have died.

Meanwhile, a student at the exhibition, Uday Bhatt, said with the exhibition they want to bring their fight for peace and freedom in front of the world.

"In the exhibition we saw the present situation of Tibet and the relation between India and Tibet," said Bhatt.

Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has lived in India since fleeing a failed uprising against Chinese rule of his homeland in 1959.

Human rights activists say China tramples on religious freedom and culture in Tibet, which it has ruled strictly since People's Liberation Army troops "peacefully liberated" the region in 1950.

China rejects such criticism, saying its rule ended serfdom in Tibet and brought development to a backward, poverty-stricken region.
Tibet students display China's oppression through photo exhibition | Latest News & Updates at Daily News & Analysis

 

[atatwolf]

Tibet’s Monks Are Setting Themselves on Fire Again
It’s the worst escalation in anti-Chinese protests in almost two years—three self-immolations in a week—and Facebook is trying to pretend like none of it ever happened.
The world’s most brutal occupation took yet another bloody turn late last month, reports from Tibet now confirm. In the final week of the year, three Tibetans burned themselves alive to protest China’s 56-year-long occupation of Tibet. This was the most concentrated burst of self-immolations in almost two years.

As if that weren't tragic enough, Chinese police then opened fire on Tibetans trying to give one of the victims a traditional Tibetan funeral. On Facebook, authorities deleted posts related to the self-immolations. The social media giant says the images and posts were too graphic. Activists say Facebook is cozying up to the Chinese regime.

Tibet is the largest nation without self-determination in the world today with over 3 million Tibetans living under Chinese occupation in China and about 150,000 more in exile. Unbelievably, 1.2 Tibetans—over 20% of the country’s pre-occupation population—have died as a result of China’s repressive policies.

By way of comparison, according to Palestinian activists, 100,000 Palestinians (2.5% of the population) have died as a result of Israel-related violence since 1948.

China, however, is not Israel. As a world superpower with growing economic clout, not to mention the world’s most populous nation, there is little other nations can do, either in response to tragedies like the Cultural Revolution or Tienanmen Square massacre, or to ongoing occupations like that of Tibet.

Tibetans know this. The Dalai Lama has said since the late 1990s, that he would accept Chinese rule as long as Tibetans had “a high degree of autonomy,” and the Chinese regime stopped the population transfers that have made the Tibetan capital of Lhasa into a majority-Chinese city. But despite eight years of talks (from 2002 to 2010) and the Dalai Lama’s retirement from political life in 2011, not only has no progress been made, but the situation has steadily gotten worse.

Tibetans know this too. Outside of Tibet, the younger generation has questioned the Dalai Lama’s conciliatory policy. Inside of Tibet, the younger generation has become desperate, and self-immolation has become the desperate protest of choice. Echoing the self-immolation of Buddhist monks in Vietnam, the first such act took place in India in 1998, but the tactic began to spread in earnest in 2011.

Since then, 110 to have burned themselves to death.

Self-immolations are horrific. Youtube has a (warning—incredibly graphic) video of one here. Dying by fire is said to be the greatest human fear, which is why so many people jumped out of the World Trade Center on September 11. It’s an apt metaphor for rage and hopelessness, yet the self-immolators believe its dramatic nature also has the capacity to inspire. Indeed, the self-immolation of Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi ignited the Arab Spring.

There is also a specifically Buddhist flavor to the act. The Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh wrote to Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1965 that “to burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance.” Yet the image of a monk or nun seated still in meditative posture while flames devour his or her body is also a provocative image for self-transcendence. It has become iconic.

It’s not known if a single thread unites the three most recent protesters. The first, Sanghe Khar, came from a remote, nomadic area, and killed himself on December 16, the occasion of a Tibetan holiday. The second, Tseypey, was a nineteen-year-old girl. Her exact motive was unknown, but activists note that a previous self-immolation took place in the same town two years prior. (A horrifying video is here.) The third, a Tibetan monk named Kalsang Yeshe, was a well-known teacher who self-immolated in front of a new police station established near his monastery, long a site of confrontation between Tibetans and Chinese forces.

It was the third self-immolation that triggered yet another round of violence – although details are unclear. According to a source on Radio Free Asia, a crowd gathered around Yeshe and tried to keep the police from taking the body away, perhaps because Yeshe was a monk. But the police fired into the crowd, and took the body anyway.

Another report, by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, said that the crowd gathered around the police station, demanding the body’s return, and that the police fired at that point.

Either way, Yeshe was denied a traditional funeral. His family was told that he’d already been cremated, and his ashes dumped in a river.

The final insult, though obviously not as egregious as all that had come before, came from—of all places—Facebook. On December 26, Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser wrote a short post about Yeshe’s death, including a link to video about it. Facebook deleted the post.

Tibet activists went ballistic. They noted that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on a big pro-regime love-fest, publicly praising a book by Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping (reportedly stating that “I want [Facebook staff] to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics”), cozying up to censorer-in-chief Lu Wei, and speaking at a Beijing conference in Mandarin.

So the International Campaign for Tibet started a petition got a few thousand signatures (not really a big deal these days), and got Facebook’s attention.

In an official response to the criticism, Facebook said that the real problem was that the posted video was too graphic:

Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences, particularly when they’re connected to controversial events. Where such expression involves graphic videos, it needs to be shared responsibly, so that younger people on Facebook do not see it, and it doesn’t appear without warning in peoples’ News Feeds. While we continue to work on ways of giving people ways to share graphic expression responsibly, we will remove video content of this nature from our service… Any suggestion that we took action because of politics, philosophy or theoretical business interests is completely false.

Moreover, Woeser was able to repost the video later, where it remains. Surely, though, this undermines rather than proves Facebook’s point. If the video was too graphic on December 24, it was too graphic on January 8, no? On the other hand, if this is about Facebook trying to save face after a small-scale PR scandal, then the about-face makes sense.

Mark Zuckerberg is now on the Je Suis Charlie train, affirming free expression everywhere. Nice words. We’ll see if they translate into action the next time a young Tibetan sets herself on fire, and the Chinese regime seeks to sweep the ashes under the rug.

 

[Shinigami]

so sad. nothing anybody can do

 

[Mitro]

Human right was worst @ the time of Dalai Lama system which made them slaves and bonded laborer now they are free and enjoying the progress with rest of chinese people .

 

[atatwolf]

so sad. nothing anybody can do

We can do boycott on China over a couple of years when production will be less depended on China. There are upcoming third world countries that will replace cheap production.

 

[opruh]

I would love to visit Tibet one day, it's really good to hear news about Tibetan life improving so much under the Chinese government with no one being a slave and everyone being treated equally.

 

[Shinigami]

Human right was worst @ the time of Dalai Lama system which made them slaves and bonded laborer now they are free and enjoying the progress with rest of chinese people .

haven't you changed your flag yet?

I would love to visit Tibet one day, it's really good to hear news about Tibetan life improving so much under the Chinese government with no one being a slave and everyone being treated equally.

I believe North Korea is doing even better




whats up with all these false flag scum?

 

[gambit]

Human right was worst @ the time of Dalai Lama system which made them slaves and bonded laborer now they are free and enjoying the progress with rest of chinese people .

So would you support the US invade Cuba and made Cuba an official US state ? After all, human rights is terrible in Cuba, and if Puerto Rico is any lesson, Cuba would be better off with US, right ?

 

[Götterdämmerung]

So would you support the US invade Cuba and made Cuba an official US state ? After all, human rights is terrible in Cuba, and if Puerto Rico is any lesson, Cuba would be better off with US, right ?

The US still occupies a tiny bit of Cuba and that place, as we all know, is hell on earth.

 

[jamahir]

The Tibetan students of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad University in Gujarat held a photography exhibition

what do these indian-tibetan students say of the 2002 massacres in guajrat in which 2000+ muslims were brutally murdered... the chief minister of gujarat state then ( and local leader of the responsible group, bjp ) is the prime minister of india now... narendra modi.

such nonsense cia-supported agencies like "freedom house" regularly publish/published nonsense about every society which does not bow to the western bloc.

i say north korea kidnap these "freedom house" "activists" and charge them with promoting western government crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.

and somebody slap those indian-tibetan students, please.

I believe North Korea is doing even better

i wish to visit north korea.

haven't you changed your flag yet?

why should he... not very democratic of you.

 

[atatwolf]

I would love to visit Tibet one day, it's really good to hear news about Tibetan life improving so much under the Chinese government with no one being a slave and everyone being treated equally.

 

[gambit]

The US still occupies a tiny bit of Cuba and that place, as we all know, is hell on earth.

For a certain demographic...

 

[Nan Yang]

I was traveling from JuiZhaiGuo to Chendu and passing many Tibetan villages.
This is a picture I took of one of the village. If you look carefully you will see many Red Chinese Flags.
Being on a moving bus, I only manage to take this one village and there were many villages I passed with many Chinese flags.

 

[atatwolf]

I was traveling from JuiZhaiGuo to Chendu and passing many Tibetan villages.
This is a picture I took of one of the village. If you look carefully you will see many Red Chinese Flags.
Being on a moving bus, I only manage to take this one village and there were many villages I passed with many Chinese flags.

If you put a gun against their head. They will do and say what you want. China is not for example a UK where you can have free opinions Haha, hilarious.

 

[Foggy_Bottom]

It's just modern day ethnic cleansing in Tibet
And till the tibetans start their own Arab spring moment, it will continue.