Local Tibetans beaten following three more self-immolations in Tibet

UPDATE AUGUST 15, 2012: Tashi, who self-immolated on August 13, has passed away. According to the Kirti monks in exile in India, it is not clear whether his remains were handed over to his family. Local people visited monasteries to say prayers and make offerings yesterday (August 14) and shops and restaurants in Ngaba were closed.

The condition of the Tibetan who was beaten severely by armed police and seen afterwards with his head bleeding is not known. Radio Free Asia reported one Tibetan source as saying that he had died after the beating.

Local Tibetans were severely beaten by police in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province following two self-immolations on August 13 and one on August 10.

Local people who gathered at the scene of the self-immolations, shouting slogans of protest, were confronted by police carrying sticks studded with nails.  According to Kanyag Tsering and Lobsang Yeshe, Tibetan monks from Kirti monastery in Dharamsala, India, the police began beating the protesters indiscriminately and made some arrests. "One person was covered in blood after being hit in the head with the spiked clubs, but nothing more is known of his situation. Security forces were then deployed throughout the county town in large numbers," they said.

Information about the self-immolations, also conveyed through the monks from Kirti monastery in Dharamsala, is as follows: Early in the evening of August 13, a 21-year old Tibetan named Tashi from the Soruma pastoral area in Choejema township, and a Tibetan monk called Lungtok, aged about 20, set fire to themselves in an enclosure that housed a prayer wheel on the monastery’s perimeter. They emerged shouting protest slogans on the Ngaba street leading from Kirti monastery to the town referred to as ‘Heroes Road’ by locals since the first self-immolation in Tibet took place here in February, 2009.

As Lungtok approached the junction with the central street, a group of policemen surrounded him, extinguished the flames, and took him away. It is unclear whether he was still alive at that time. Both men were taken initially to the county hospital, and then within half an hour they were taken to the Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture hospital in Barkham (Chinese: Ma’erkang). Tibetan sources report that their burns were so severe that there was little hope of survival, and according to information received today, Lungtok passed away.

Lungtok is the son of Richung, who passed away some time ago, and his mother’s name is Lumo. He studied at the Kirti monastery (traditional) medical college, and Tashi was his classmate when he was a monk (before Tashi disrobed in 2011).  At that day's morning assembly of the medical college, Lungtok had distributed a yuan to every monk on behalf of the Tibetans who set fire to themselves since February, 2009, and offered prayers dedicated to them.

On August 10, a young Tibetan layperson called Chopa set himself on fire in Me’urama township, Ngaba, shouting words of protest against the Chinese government, according to the same sources. Within minutes, security personnel extinguished the flames and took him away. It was not clear whether he was still alive, but Tibetans in exile described the flames as “fierce” and doubted he would survive. Since then, the Kirti monks in exile have received confirmation that he died soon before reaching hospital in Barkham. His body was immediately cremated by the authorities.

Following the self-immolation, armed troops began to converge upon Me’urama township in Ngaba county and the situation is believed to be tense.

Chopa had been among the leaders of a candlelight march in Me’urama township on January 23, during the lunar new year. He had been forced to go into hiding to avoid arrest afterwards.

State Department reports on continued erosion of religious freedom in Tibet

The U.S. State Department has identified Chinese policies as a cause of the self-immolations in Tibet. In its just-released annual report on religious freedom, the Department wrote that, “official interference in the practice of Tibetan Buddhist religious traditions generated profound grievances and contributed to a series of self-immolations by Tibetans.”

“We welcome the Department’s advocacy on Tibet and its focus on the severe restrictions on religious freedom that are exacerbating the self-immolation crisis,” said Todd Stein, Director of Government Relations at the International Campaign for Tibet. “We know that Tibet was raised in last week’s human rights dialogue with the Chinese, and look forward to hearing whether the Chinese had any positive response to the U.S.’s concerns on Tibet, and what the State Department’s consequential next step will be if they did not."

The findings are located in the special Tibet section of the State Department’s 2011 International Religious Freedom Report, an annual assessment of countries’ respect for religious liberty, mandated by Congress in 1998. The Tibet section can be found at www.state.gov.

The report’s assessments come amidst a roll-out across Tibetan areas of rules and regulations which “provide the ostensible legal basis for [Chinese] government control over and authoritative reinterpretation of Tibetan Buddhism.” Such measures, first implemented in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), are being extended to other Tibetan autonomous jurisdictions in eastern Tibet, which have witnessed the greatest number of self-immolations.

Examples include codified “government control over the selection of religious leaders, including reincarnate lamas,” requiring government permission for large-scale religious gatherings and building construction, the permanent stationing of government officials inside monasteries, and ‘patriotic education’ activities that force monks and nuns to denounce the Dalai Lama and praise Chinese Communist leaders. The report found these measures to be the “primary sources of discontent among Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns, and the impetus behind such acts of protest as self-immolation.”

The report cites a number of individual cases, but noted that “limited access … made it difficult to ascertain the number of cases of Tibetan prisoners of religious conscience. It states that, “U.S. government officials repeatedly requested diplomatic access to the TAR but only one TAR visit was approved [in April 2011], and that visit was closely controlled and monitored.” If further reported that U.S. diplomats and other foreigners seeking to travel in other Tibetan areas were turned back at roadblocks or refused transportation on public buses … that were ostensibly open to foreign tourists.”

The report’s observations on religious freedom are consistent with those in a major report issued by the International Campaign for Tibet in April, entitled “60 Years of Misrule; Arguing Cultural Genocide in Tibet.” It found that religious repression formed part of a consistent and systemic Chinese effort to replace organic Tibetan culture with a state-approved version to suit the Party’s ideological, political and economic objectives. It argues that these policies are so systematic and persistent in their destruction of Tibetan culture, that they contain elements of cultural genocide.

Tibetans in Rebkong gather to protest police brutality

A photo of Tibetan protests in Rebkong that circulated on Twitter and other forms of social media.

Tibetans in Rebkong, Qinghai (the Tibetan area of Amdo) held a bold peaceful protest yesterday (August 14) to complain about brutality by local police after four Tibetans were beaten up. Footage (uploaded to Youtube) and images from Rebkong (Chinese: Tongren) yesterday depict crowds of Tibetans gathering peacefully and displaying banners in both Chinese and Tibetan saying: “Rebkong county police brutal beatings of Tibetan people’. Photographs of the four Tibetans who were beaten were also displayed.

According to several Tibetan sources in exile who are in contact with Tibetans in the area, hundreds of Tibetans gathered at the police station in Rebkong county town, Malho (Chinese: Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture after four Tibetans were beaten and injured the day before by police. The four Tibetans, named as Kelsang, Kunchok Nyima, Shawo Tsering and Kunchok Norbu, were attacked by police who had impounded their car. According to Tibetan sources, there had been no obvious reason for the Tibetans to be targeted and one of them is seriously injured.

More Tibetans began to join the protest in front of the police station during the day, with older Tibetans urging younger protestors to maintain their non-violent approach. The police closed the gate of the police station and did not emerge during the day.

Footage released by the Tibetan service of Radio Free Asia shows a crowd of Tibetans outside the police station, with a second clip showing a number of Tibetans marching peacefully towards the police station shouting that the police had beaten local Tibetans.

Five months ago, the self-immolation of a young monk called Jamyang Palden in Rebkong led to a peaceful gathering of Tibetans at the scene offering prayers, and then protesting Chinese policies. Jamyang Palden set fire to himself on March 14 in Dolma square, near Rongpo monastery, the main monastery in Rebkong. Despite the buildup of troops, images received from Rebkong on the same day show local people gathered at the scene of his self-immolation, quietly praying for him. The gathering led to a peaceful protest, with Tibetans calling for the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet. (ICT Report: Tensions escalate in Qinghai: Rebkong self-immolation, student protest, monks commemorate March 10).