02. Mar 2009
Anti China demonstrations banned in Nepal
(AsiaNews) Nepal has banned for an indefinite period all protests around the Chinese Embassy and Visa Office in Kathmandu because of the "sensitivity of the situation". According to a spokesman for Nepal's Home Affairs Ministry, anyone found protesting near the two sites will be arrested as a precaution against any rallies planned to mark the 50th anniversary of the Lhasa uprising.
02. Mar 2009
Chinese forces surround Tibetan monastery
(AFP; ICT; SFT) Security forces have surrounded the monastery of Sey in Ngaba (Chin: Aba) TAP in Sichuan after monks held a rally a week before the 50th anniversary of the Lhasa uprising, US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said, citing sources in the region. Monks demonstrated close to where another monk set himself on fire one week before. Scores of monks from the monastery rallied after officials outlawed prayers during the Monlam prayer festival. The New York-based Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) also reported on the rally, saying between 300 and 400 soldiers tried to stop the protest as the monks marched out of the monastery. "The monastery is now sealed and there is a heavy military presence outside the main road", the group said in a statement.
05. Mar 2009
Boycott of official events during Losar
Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports that Tibetans in Kardze (Chin: Ganzi) have boycotted government-sanctioned performances during the Tibetan new year festival (Losar). During the Losar festival, authorities in the Kardze area ordered performance groups to tour different towns and villages putting on shows. Each group was escorted by People's Armed Police (PAP) officers and official reporters, a RFA source said, describing the response by local Tibetans as "very cold". One group was sent to the Rongpa Tsal sub-district of Kardze. "Before the performance group arrived, hundreds of posters were put up urging Tibetans not to attend the shows", the RFA source said. In Lopa subdistrict, they were also met with posters and leaflets urging resistance and calling for Tibetan independence. "In some of the posters, the Chinese authorities were threatened with violent retaliation for their crackdowns on peaceful Tibetans", the source said. "Even government employees at the subdistrict and township levels were warned not to attend the shows. They were told that if they did, they would pay with their lives", he said.
05. Mar 2009
Two arrested in Kardze
(RFA) RFA reports that two Tibetan women - a nun named Pema Yangdzom, and a girl whose name and age were unavailable - staged separate protests in front of Kardze's Public Security Bureau (PSB), according to the nun's uncle, Yeshe Dorje, now living in Australia. "My niece protested at around 10:20 a.m. and was quickly taken away by Chinese police", Yeshe Dorje said, citing information from local family members. "The other young girl appeared at the same place in the afternoon around 1:00 p.m. and protested. She too was taken away". Yeshe Dorje said he was unable to obtain further details about the protests, calling the presence of Chinese forces in the area "overwhelming".
07. Mar 2009
Two monks, three teenagers held for protesting
(TibetanReview.net; VoT) Two monks and three laymen were arrested on 06 and 07 March for staging protests in Kardze (Chin: Ganzi) county, in Sichuan province, reported Oslo-based Voice of Tibet (VoT) radio service. The report did not name the two monks and nor gave details about their protest action, which it said took place on 06 March. It named the three teenagers who staged a protest on 07 March as Tsering Dakpa 16; Chonyi Gyaltsen, 18, and Rinchen Phuntsok, 15. It said they were severely beaten after their arrest.
07. Mar 2009
Four nuns sentenced
(TCHRD) The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) reports that Kardze Court recently sentenced four nuns from Puru-na nunnery, Su-ngog township, Kardze county. The nuns were part of a group of fifty nuns who staged a demonstration outside Kardze county headquarters on 14 May 2008. The nuns were identified as Tashi Lhamo, Serka and Youghal Khando, who were sentenced to two-year prison terms, and Rinzin Choetso, sentenced to three-years. The four nuns are currently serving their sentences in a prison in Chengdu, Sichuan province's capital. The whereabouts of seven other nuns of Puru-na Nunnery who were arrested remains unknown.
07. Mar 2009
Website proprietor arrested in Gansu province
(TCHRD) TCHRD reports that Kunchog Tsephel, who runs a Tibetan language and culture website called Chomei (Eng: Lamp) (www.tibetcm.com/index.html) was arrested at his home in Gannan TAP (Chin: Kanlho), Gansu province on 26 February 2009. He is detained in one of the PSB detention centres in Gannan TAP. Tsephel started the website in 2005, in collaboration with the Tibetan poet Kyabchen Dedrol. The website was self funded and aimed to protect and promote the Tibetan arts and literature inside Tibet. The website has been under official supervision, and was shut down many times between 2007 - 2008.
09. Mar 2009
China tightens TAR border controls
(Xinhua) Chinese forces have tightened border controls between the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and neighbouring countries ahead of "expected sabotage activities" by supporters of the Dalai Lama, Xinhua reported. "We have made due deployment and tightened controls at border ports, and key areas and passages along the border in Tibet" said Fu Hongyu, the political commissar of the public security ministry's Border Control Department. The tightening of Tibet's long Himalayan border with India, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar was to ensure stability during the NPC in Beijing, and to guard against "expected sabotage activities by the Dalai Lama clique". Kang Jinzhong, the political commissar of the region's paramilitary forces, said his troops were "ready to handle any infiltration and sabotage activities by the Dalai Lama clique and other hostile forces".
09. Mar 2009
Nepal tightens security
(TibetInfoNet) One day ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising of 1959, Nepal's government has shut down all the roads around the Xinhua building in Kathmandu in order to protect the branch office of the Chinese national news agency against possible protests. The measure resulted in considerable obstructions of traffic in the Nepalese capital.
09. Mar 2009
I'll live longer for Tibetan cause: Dalai Lama
(IANS) Amid concerns about his health, the Dalai Lama said he hoped to live longer. "I will try to live longer for the Tibetan cause", he said. Thanking the Tibetan community at large and hundreds of exiled Tibetans who turned up at the Tsuglag Khang or main temple in Mcleodganj, Dharamsala, India, for offering long life prayers for him, he also said: "We all must now focus on the difficulties being faced by Tibetans inside Tibet. We should show solidarity with them".
09. Mar 2009
Amnesty International calls on Chinese authorities to open Tibet
Amnesty International (AI) called on the Chinese government to immediately open Tibet to human rights monitors and the media and to end its "Strike Hard" campaign, launched in anticipation of protests to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising. The organisation warned that the increased security measures put in place by the Chinese government in the run up to the anniversary are likely to exacerbate an already tense situation. Foreign journalists have only been allowed in on government organized group tours and all access has been denied to UN monitors. In spite of the strict control on the flow of information from the region, AI claim it is receiving reports of a number of human rights violations being carried out against the population. These include arbitrary detentions, arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention and imprisonment of peaceful protestors and other prisoners of conscience, torture and other ill-treatment, violations of freedom of expression, association and assembly, and of Tibetan people's right to maintain their culture, language and religion.
09. Mar 2009
Explosions in Golog
(Xinhua) Two home-made bombs have exploded in the Tibetan area of Golog (Chin: Guoluo) in Qinghai, reported Xinhua. Two vehicles, one of them a police car, were damaged in the blasts, however no casualties were reported. The blasts reportedly followed a dispute between the authorities and local residents who were angry with the police who stopped a timber lorry for a security check. The head of the local Communist Party said: "The emergency lights and roofs of a police car and fire engine were destroyed by unsophisticated home-made explosives".
10. Mar 2009
Troop deployments confirmed
(AFP; TibetanReview.net; TibetInfoNet; Xinhua) China admitted that it had deployed security forces in the TAR but maintained that this accorded with the region's current needs. Xinhua quoted Kang Jinzhong, political commissar of the TAR Armed Police Division, as saying the deployment of armed police in Tibet is "no exceptional practice", as they are deployed in all other Chinese provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. AFP cited the Chairman of the TAR Government Qiangba Puncog as saying the troop deployment was a "usual and necessary" security measures for the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising. Although Puncog disputed a link with the unrest of 2008, circumstantial evidence indicates that most security troops who came then to Tibet are still stationed there. There appears to be no clear evidence that additional troops were brought up more recently to the plateau.
12. Mar 2009
European Parliament urges China to negotiate
(Europarl) In a resolution adopted by MEPs to mark the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, the Chinese Government is urged to resume talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives with a view to "positive, meaningful change in Tibet", not ruling out autonomy for the region, a solution that MEPs believe need not compromise China's territorial integrity. In its key demand, Parliament urges the Chinese Government "to consider the Memorandum for Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People of November 2008 as a basis for substantive discussion leading towards positive, meaningful change in Tibet, consistent with the principles outlined in the Constitution and laws of the People's Republic of China". The resolution calls on the EU Council Presidency to adopt a declaration on the same lines. The resolution was adopted by 338 votes to 131 with 14 abstentions.
12. Mar 2009
Dalai Lama reincarnation must have China approval
(AFP; Xinhua) Beijing will decide on the reincarnated successor of the Dalai Lama when Tibetan Buddhism's highest spiritual leader passes away. "Besides religious rites and historical conventions, there is also a very important condition for the reincarnation of the Dalai and that is the approval of the central government", Chairman of the Tibetan branch of the National People's Congress (NPC) Legqoq told Xinhua. Legqoq, was speaking on the sidelines of the NPC meeting in Beijing. Legqoq said China's State Religious Affairs Commission issued regulations in 2007 that mandate government approval for all reincarnated "Living Buddhas", or lamas.
13. Mar 2009
(1 comments)
China Calls Dalai Lama a Political Exile
(VOA) China has issued its strongest recent criticism of the Dalai Lama - calling him a political exile who directly heads an illegal theocratic government. The comments came in Premier Wen Jiabao's press conference at the end of the NPC, during which he discussed a host of issues. Wen spoke most forcefully about Tibet, which he stressed was an inalienable part of China's territory. Wen said Tibet-related issues are completely China's internal affairs and that Beijing will accept no foreign interference on the matter. He said Beijing considers the Dalai Lama a political exile, not a religious figure, and that the Tibetan government in exile based in Dharamsala, is theocratic and illegal, and under the direct leadership of the Dalai Lama.
13. Mar 2009
Chinese police search houses in Lhasa for non-Tibetans
(Telegraph; SCMP) Security forces across Tibet are conducting extensive searches for "suspicious characters" ahead of the anniversary of the ethnic riots which shook Lhasa in March 2008. Mobile phone networks and internet servers have already been shut down so that activists cannot organise any protest. According to the South China Morning Post, police have not spared "a single hotel, guesthouse or local home" in the city. As well as Westerners, residents from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan have been banned, and even Tibetans from other parts of the region outside Lhasa. Anyone whose identification is not issued by the local government has been interrogated and even detained, according to local hotel and restaurant owners. The newspaper also said that major monasteries had been sealed and that armed police are on patrol night and day. Roadblocks and checkpoints have also been set up across the city. Locals also told the SCMP that a protest involving dozens of monks broke out on 09 March 2009 around the Sera monastery. At least half the monastery is now cordoned off and two military vehicles with up to 100 armed police have been deployed outside.
13. Mar 2009
Obama raises Tibet issue with Yang
(PTI). Despite Chinese discomfort, US President Barack Obama raised the issue of Tibet during his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at the Oval Office in the White House. "The President expressed his hope there would be progress in the dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama's representatives", said the White House in a statement issued after the meeting. Earlier in the week, Washington had expressed concern over human rights situation in Tibet and said only "a substantive dialogue" with the Dalai Lama's representative could bring a lasting peace in this region.
