By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
BEIJING (AP) - Jigme, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, says he had just finished having a pair of shoes mended when four uniformed guards jumped from a white van and dragged him inside.
Suppressing his calls to a passing nun for help, they shoved a sack over his head and drove him to a guesthouse run by the local paramilitary People’s Armed Police.
What followed, according to Jigme, was two months of interrogation and abuse over his suspected role in this spring’s uprising against Chinese rule across Tibet and a broad swath of Tibetan-inhabited regions in western China. (more…)
Chinadigitaltimes [Tuesday, September 02, 2008 12:54]
The following diary is a blog by a Tibetan student from Amdo in Tibet, originally posted in Chinese language on Chinese language website, newcenturynews.com, and its English translation was posted on chinadigitaltimes.net. The blog provides a glimpse into life in a remote Tibetan area as the Olympics were being celebrated in Beijing.
Today is Tuesday, July 22, 2008, and it is the tenth day since I came back to my hometown. Within these ten days, even when I refused to watch any TV and kept myself away from the internet, almost every day I could still hear about and see things concerning the Beijing Olympics in the home of a countryman in a remote area in Tibet. Therefore, today I decided to write a special diary - an Olympic Diary. I want to record all the details about how I felt about the Beijing Olympics in this remote place in Tibet when the Olympics were about to begin in Beijing, when I had no access to internet or TV. (more…)
KUMBUM MONASTERY, China (AFP) - As monks in red and orange robes stroll past tourists snapping photos of the temples, the quiet of the Kumbum Monastery seems a world away from the Olympics in far-off Beijing.But for many of the monks in this monastery on the edge of the Tibetan plateau in the Chinese province of Qinghai the Games have had a very real impact on their daily lives. (more…)
From Shadow Tibet
May 9, 2008
The following letter was written by a resident of Lhasa, who wishes to remain anonymous. It gives a personal account of the current situation and the tense atmosphere in the city:
Yesterday it was quite hot outside and the soldiers guarding one of the petrol stations had a big umbrella to protect them from the intense sunlight. Today it’s the opposite: cold, cloudy and even light snowfall as storm-fronts hover over the mountains and sometimes close in on the valley. Like the weather here in Lhasa the rules are quickly changing too. One day you can go nearly everywhere, the next, military checkpoints won’t let you pass. At the beginning of last week it seemed life was getting back to normal. Guards at the checkpoints relaxed and they seemed not as serious anymore, and overall, there was less military on the streets. But then suddenly heavy military presence was back. A few days ago, in the evening, I walked up Beijing Road. As I did, many military trucks passed me and there were patrols everywhere, only a few cars were to be seen driving around, and the streets were near empty of civilian people. The atmosphere was tense and made the young, normally childish looking soldiers, suddenly look scary. (more…)
A number of monks of Drepung Monastery in Tibet were detained by the Chinese security officials in and around 12 April 2008 following the monks’ protest against Chinese “Work Team” who paid a visit to the monastery to conduct “Patriotic Education” Campaign, according to confirmed information received from reliable sources by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). (more…)
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) reports that around 70 monks of Ramoche Temple in Lhasa were detained in a night-time raid on April 7th. People’s Armed Police (PAP) and Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials raided the monks’ residences and took them away to an unknown location.
At present only a few monks are left in the Ramoche Temple, which previously housed around a hundred monks.
Severe restrictions have been imposed on the movement of the monks at the Ramoche Temple since the March 14th protest in Lhasa. TCHRD confirmed a case of one monk, Thokmey, committing suicide in Ramoche Temple following massive crackdowns by the PAP and PSB officials on March 22nd.
Similar restrictions were imposed on all the major monasteries of Tibet including Drepung, Gaden and Sera. All access to these monasteries has been severely restricted, with around-the-clock monitoring by a heavy presence of PAP and PSB officials since demonstrations broke out on March 10th in Lhasa and other parts of Tibet.
TCHRD’s press release goes on to show how the Chinese government has defended the presence of PAP and PSB personnel in Tibet.
XIAHE, China (Reuters) - Fifteen Tibetan Buddhist monks interrupted a state-sponsored media tour of a restive region of western China on Wednesday, demanding the return of the Dalai Lama and yelling that they had no human rights.
In the second such incident in as many months, the monks, carrying a banned Tibetan flag, burst out of a building at the Labrang monastery in the town of Xiahe, in the northwestern province of Gansu, and rushed across a plaza to a group of 20 visiting Chinese and foreign journalists.
“The Dalai Lama has to come back to Tibet. We are not asking for Tibetan independence, we are just asking for human rights. We have no human rights now,” one monk told the reporters in Chinese. (more…)
Times Online
April 7, 2008
Ten people were wounded when Chinese paramilitary police opened fire on a crowd of Tibetans protesting against limits on a prayer ceremony and demanding the return of the Dalai Lama, witnesses said.
The violence was in a remote town in western Sichuan province on Saturday, where monks at the Lingque temple had been joined by several hundred pilgrims for an annual ceremony, the Torgya, which is meant to exorcise evil elements from society. (more…)
Times Online
April 4, 2008
Jane Macartney in Beijing
Chinese paramilitary police have killed eight people after opening fire on several hundred Tibetan monks and villagers in bloody violence that will fuel human rights protests as London prepares to host its leg of the Olympic torch relay this weekend.
Witnesses said the clash – in which dozens were wounded – erupted late last night after a government inspection team entered a monastery in the Chinese province of Sichuan trying to confiscate pictures of the Dalai Lama. (more…)
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy released photos yesterday of hundreds of Tibetans holding a solidarity march in Holkha Township, Tsigorthang County (Ch: Xinghai Xian), Tsolho TAP, Qinghai Province on March 25. The march and prayer session were held for those who lost their lives in the recent series of protests in Tibet. (more…)
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