China Digital Times

China news tagged with: Lhasa riots (90)

• China Confirms Two Tibet Executions

  

  The Chinese government has confirmed the previously-reported execution of two Tibetans for their role in the 2008 Lhasa riots. From The Guardian:

  A foreign ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, said two men had been put to death, and declined to provide further details. Overseas Tibetan groups have identified the dead as Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak.

  Lobsang Gyaltsen was sentenced to death this year for an arson attack that killed a shop owner in Lhasa, according to a report at the time by Xinhua news agency. Loyak was handed the same penalty for starting a blaze at a motorcycle shop that killed five people, the agency said.

  The US-funded Radio Free Asia said Lobsang Gyaltsen was allowed a visit by his mother before he was executed. “I have nothing to say, except please take good care of my child and send him to school,” he was quoted as telling her.

  » Read more
  • October 27, 2009 1:59 PM

• Isabel Hilton: Will China Implode?

  

  Isabel Hilton writes on The Daily Beast that the recent unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang marks an empire in crisis:

  There is a story that the Chinese government likes to tell: that China is the world’s oldest continuous, unchanging civilization (the dates vary, according to the exuberance of the moment, from 2,000 to a mythical 5,000 years). This unique history, the story continues, will determine China’s future. In this narrative of Chinese exceptionalism, the leadership remains immune to demands for democracy or any resemblance to other developed countries. The government hopes that this story will prove persuasive enough for the Communist Party to keep the Mandate of Heaven and avoid challenges to its exclusive right to rule for the foreseeable future.

  It’s a curious story for a Communist Party and very different to the earlier myths of origin. Where once it promoted class struggle and revolution, today’s party invokes history and tradition in support of its right to rule. In its latest identification with the imperial orders of the past, the regime is even restoring Confucianism as the core state narrative.

  [...] In a globalized world, China’s troubles are everybody’s troubles and the U.S. has little interest in seeing them grow. But China’s solutions, to date, are unlikely to help. The revolt of the minorities is only a symptom of a wider political malaise. Even taken together, their numbers, compared to the overwhelming majority of Han Chinese, are small. But the indignation and resentment that burst into view in Xinjiang in Tibet are also visible, for a wide variety of reasons, in the Han population. As Xu Zhiyong, one of the founders of the OCI put it in a withering public statement of protest at the centre’s closure:

  “It’s not us causing trouble, and the tens of thousands of mass incidents every year aren’t caused by us …. On the contrary, we strive to bring into line the contradictions caused by corrupt officials, we advocate absolute nonviolence and we hope we can ameliorate some of the endless hate and conflicts in our society… do not let this country once more be dragged by those in power to a place where we are dead but not buried…”

  » Read more
  • July 31, 2009 11:03 AM

• Dui Hua Human Rights Journal: Tibetan Guide’s Incitement Case Surfaces: 3-Year Sentence for Emails, Text Messages

  

  From the Dui Hua Human Rights Journal:

  Dui Hua has obtained and produced English translations of the indictment and verdict (original documents in PDF) for a previously unknown case of a Tibetan sentenced to three years in prison for “inciting splittism” after the March 14 riots in Lhasa. The case against Gonpo Tserang (贡保才让), a well-respected expedition guide who has trekked with foreign celebrities and participated in high-profile mountain rescue efforts, involved a series of emails and text messages sent over three days to acquaintances outside of China. These messages, which prosecutors claim “distorted the facts and true situation regarding social stability in the Tibetan area following the ‘March 14 incident” were considered by the court to be deserving of severe punishment.

  This case is significant in a number of respects. First, it is the only case Dui Hua is aware of in which a Tibetan in Yunnan Province has been convicted of a state security crime following the Tibetan protests of 2008. Second, it is not at all apparent that the charge of “inciting splittism” was properly applied. The content of the messages is never specified, and it is questionable whether individuals who are not located in China are even capable of carrying out acts that would “split the nation or undermine national unity.” An argument could thus be made that, never imagining that his messages could “incite splittism,” Gonpo Tserang did not intend to do so. This is perhaps an argument that an attorney could have raised in his defense. Unfortunately, it appears that, at least for his appeal, Gonpo Tserang was not represented by counsel—very likely a result of the reluctance of most lawyers to take on criminal defense work in political cases and the threats made warning of serious consequences for lawyers who volunteered to defend Tibetans.

  Below is an excerpt of Gongbo Tserang’s indictment and verdict, translated by Dui Hua:

  Defendant Gonpo Tserang, male, born December 13, 1976, identification number: 523232197612131519, from Ruoergai [Dzoege] County, Aba [Ngaba] Prefecture, Sichuan Province, understands Tibetan and English and [is employed as a] guide in the expeditions department of the Xianggelila Travel Service. Prior to arrest, resided at 3-1-2 Old Civil Aviation Development, Jiantang Town, Xianggelila County. Placed under criminal detention by the Diqing Prefecture Public Security Bureau on March 23, 2008, on suspicion of inciting splittism. On April 26 of the same year, after approval from our procuratorate, he was arrested by the Diqing Prefecture Public Security Bureau in accordance with the law. He is now in custody and has no prior criminal record.

  The Diqing Prefecture Public Security Bureau completed its investigation and sent the case of Gonpo Tserang, suspected of the crime of inciting splittism, to our procuratorate on June 25, 2008, for review and prosecution. After receiving the case, we notified the defendant of his right to retain defense counsel, questioned the defendant in accordance with the law, and reviewed all of the case materials. On July 31, 2008, the case was sent back to the Diqing Prefecture Public Security Bureau for additional investigation, and on August 29 the bureau concluded its investigation and reported [its findings] back to our procuratorate.

  Following investigation in accordance with the law, it was ascertained that from March 16 to 18, 2008, defendant Gonpo Tserang used the Internet and a mobile telephone to send inflammatory emails and messages that distorted the facts and true situation regarding social stability in the Tibetan area following the “March 14 incident” to Daiwei, Jimu, and Pan Feilaici, [who were all] outside the country.

  » Read more
  • June 23, 2009 6:52 PM

• Tibetan Monks Tell Tale of Escape From China

  

  The New York Times follows up with monks who staged a public protest during a visit to their monastery by foreign journalists in April 2008, following widespread protests throughout Tibetan areas:

  That daring protest, in April 2008, was transmitted around the world by the journalists on the government tour, putting a dramatic face on Tibetan defiance. Chinese officials had brought the journalists to the sprawling Labrang Monastery, in the town of Xiahe to show that Tibetans were content under Chinese rule, despite the widespread Tibetan uprising the previous month. The enraged monks, about 15 in all, punctured the official narrative.

  “If we monks hadn’t seized the opportunity to express our feelings, which are feelings in all Tibetan monks, then we would have missed a chance to tell the world,” said Lobsang, 24, a squat man with a thin goatee who now lives in India. Following Tibetan custom, he goes by his given name.

  The journalists left later that afternoon without knowing the names or the fates of the protesters. Some would be arrested and beaten, Lobsang said. For him and two other monks, it was the start of a harrowing year of flight from the Chinese authorities that ended only last month, when they arrived in this Himalayan hill town where the Dalai Lama lives in exile.

  » Read more
  • June 20, 2009 7:28 PM

• Chinese Court Postpones Judgment on Tibetan Living Buddha

  

  A Chinese court has unexpectedly delayed the sentencing of living Buddha Phurbu Tsering Rinpoche, arrested March 18 during the 2008 Lhasa riots for possession of illegal weapons and seizing government land, possibly due to international attention on the case. Jane Macartney reports for Times Online:

  A Chinese court has decided at the last minute to postpone judgment on a Tibetan living Buddha who faces 15 years in jail on charges of possessing illegal weapons and illegally seizing government land.

  [...]Legal experts said that such a move was rare for a Chinese court and could indicate that the unusually spirited defence presented in court and the international publicity the case has attracted could have prompted unexpected debate among judicial officials over the sentence.

  [...]The monk, the fifth incarnation of a revered Buddhist teacher, known by the title of Burongma, was arrested on March 18 last year, four days after nuns from two religious houses over which he presides took to the streets in demonstrations just as deadly rioting erupted in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.

  [...]Phurbu Rinpoche denies possession of the weapon [found in his home] and says that he signed a confession under police duress.

  » Read more
  • April 28, 2009 12:14 AM

• Tibetans Sentenced to Death

  

  Two Tibetans were sentenced to death and two to death with a two-year reprieve for their role in the unrest in Lhasa last March. From the Guardian:

  According to the Xinhua news agency, Lobsang Gyaltsen will be executed for arson attacks on two garment shops in central Lhasa on 14 March that killed a shop owner. The same sentence was handed down to Loyak for torching a motorcycle dealership in Deqen Township, which left five people dead, it said.

  Suspended death penalties were passed on an accomplice, Kangtsuk, and on Tenzin Phuntsok who reportedly confessed to starting a separate lethal fire. A fifth defendant is still being tried.

  “The three arson cases are among the crimes that led to the worst consequences in the 14 March riot,” the court spokeseman was quoted by Xinhua as saying. “Their crimes incurred great losses to people’s lives and property and severely undermine the social order, security and stability.”

  Christian Science Monitor correspondent Peter Ford writes on his blog that the news was officially released by Xinhua in English before it was reported in the domestic media:

  Bizarrely, the news first appeared Wednesday evening on the English-language service of the state-run Xinhua news agency. But nowhere was it to be found on the Chinese language service for another 24 hours.

  That meant that, while the world knew, not a single paper in China ran a story Thursday about the first death sentences known to have been passed on Tibetans for last year’s riots, on individuals identified as Losang Gyaltse and Loyar – except the government-run “Tibetan Daily,” published in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital.

  They put it in their hard-copy edition, but for some reason it was not findable on their website until Thursday afternoon. Only then did a handful of news portals elsewhere on the Chinese Web pick the story up.

  Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that negotiations between Beijing and the TIbetan government-in-exile have stalled:

  Speaking in London today, Kelsang Gyaltsen, the Dalai Lama’s envoy and chief negotiator, said the Tibetan leader remained committed to dialogue but he admitted the talks process was at a halt and that no new meetings were planned. The Dalai Lama was waiting for a sign from Beijing that it was serious about resolving Tibet’s myriad problems, he said. Meanwhile Tibetans wanted a “strong and clear” position by the international community to step up pressure on China.

  Gyaltsen said China had imposed “undeclared martial law” in Tibet in recent months and had greatly increased its military presence to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first Tibetan uprising. Chinese forces had penetrated even the remotest areas and were building barracks in preparation for a long occupation, he said. Officials said repressive measures, including torture, remain in widespread use. A massive Chinese propaganda effort to “whitewash their subjugation of the Tibetan people” was underway at home and abroad in parallel with the continued banning of independent foreign media.

  » Read more
  • April 9, 2009 9:51 PM

• Austin Ramzy: Why China’s Block on YouTube Is Backfiring

  

  Austin Ramzy explains why blocking YouTube undermines the Chinese government’s claim that the video of Chinese policemen beating Tibetan detainees after the March 2008 Lhasa riots is faked.  From The China Blog at Time.com:

  [...]the nature of the Internet has changed. The importance of photo, video and blog hosting sites has grown dramatically. While we in the mainstream media like to consider ourselves indispensable, the fact is that we are ultimately just news. Blocking YouTube, Flickr or WordPress not only restricts access to videos, photos and blog posts related to specific news events, it also impedes people trying to view the latest Kanye West video, pictures of their friend’s ski trip or their favorite blog on Korean pop stars. In other words, it screws with a whole bunch of folks’ programs.

  And lastly, what’s blocked/what’s not is an easily reported story for people writing from China. You don’t have to leave your desk or even pick up the phone. It’s all there on your computer screen. The censors rarely explain their motivation, leaving everyone free to hypothesize. That’s all fat on the fryer.

  But I sense this shift in how people cover the Internet in China may be lost on the government. Last weekend individual YouTube pages carrying the Tibet video were blocked here, which wasn’t a much of a story. Now the entire site is blocked, and the censorship and the Tibet video itself have all become subjects of international interest. Beijing says the video is faked and that it’s not afraid of the Internet. But blocking YouTube makes the very opposite statement. If Beijing has proof the video is fake, then detailing that would be far more devastating to the overseas Tibetans’ assertions than blocking YouTube. But for now it’s relying on equally fuzzy claims, further ensuring this story won’t go away.

  See also CDT’s previous post on Voice of America’s graphic video which claims to show Chinese police beating bound Tibetan protestors last March.

  » Read more
  • March 26, 2009 2:46 PM

• Footage of Beatings of Tibet Protesters Released

  

  Voice of America’s Tibetan service has posted graphic footage allegedly of Chinese police beating Tibetan protesters in or near Lhasa last March:

  The exile Tibetan government released, Friday, some rare footages of police beating of protestors, the suffering death of a captive, and para-military presence in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. These footages managed to make their way to the outside world.

  Watch the VOA footage here.

  » Read more
  • March 20, 2009 12:25 PM

• China Says 21 More People Will Go to Prison in Tibet Protests

  

  Authorities have announced that they have made 21 more arrests in connection with the riots in Lhasa last March, bringing the total number of arrests to 76. From the New York Times:

  The new punishments, announced by Xinhua, the official news agency, came three months after the first batch of 55 convicted rioters were sentenced to terms ranging from three years to life for crimes that included robbery, arson and disturbing public order.

  Xinhua said the new punishments were first disclosed by Nyima Tsering, a Communist Party official in Lhasa, at a news briefing in the Tibetan capital on Tuesday.

  He did not provide details about the length of the sentences or the crimes committed for the newest group of convicts. But he suggested that the government had shown leniency toward the 950 people who had been detained since the March 14 riots. “We have been restraining ourselves to a large extent,” he said, according to Xinhua. “We haven’t been using destructive weapons.”

  » Read more
  • February 11, 2009 10:15 PM

• Interview with Anti-CNN Founder Qi Hanting

  

  Students in my Blogging China class at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism conducted an email interview with Qi Hanting, a founder of the Anti-CNN website. The site was founded in the wake of the riots in Tibet in March, “to expose the lies and distortions in the western media,” according to their own description. Qi Hanting is a journalism student at Tsinghua University who studied with Li Xiguang and attended the Salzburg Academy in 2007.

  Blogging China student Jenny Leung submitted the following questions to Qi by email. Qi chose to respond with one full-length response that refers to some of the questions but does not answer them one-by-one, thanks to Shilin Jia for the translation from Chinese to English.

  Questions submitted to Qi Hanting:
  Some people will describe your site as a part of “angry youth”? Do you agree? How would you describe anti-CNN? Truth-seeking? Patriotic? Why?
  Where do you see the future of anti-CNN?
  Can you describe the online community that anti-CNN is a part of?
  What has changed since high school and college on how you view China and its system?
  What are the valuable things have you learned from your anti-cnn site experiences?
  Can you describe why continue you to moderate the site? Or what are you getting out of being a moderator of anti-CNN?
  How is the forum moderated?
  How politically involved are you offline? Are you active in other domestic social, political issues or other international issues?
  How do you think anti-CNN has contributed to how Chinese people view the world?
  Do you think Anti-CNN is successful in communicating the “truth” about China to others? Why or why not?
  How do you feel the anti-CNN platform has allowed your personal voice, or others, to be expressed?

  
  Qi Hanting’s response:
  First, I want to clarify that I was involved in the establishment of Anti-CNN (hereafter referred to as AC), but I’ve already quit the job. My ideas weren’t fully implemented at AC, but I think all the ACers did it with the mindset of facilitating communication. AC’s original slogan was “Do not oppose media, but oppose factual distortion.” Certainly it may have gone astray later on, but the original intention was good and also played a role. In relation to my explanation of AC, you can search it on the website “ohmynews”, where an old lady who invented the term ‘netizen’ interviewed me and posted it there.

  The AC website was born under those certain historical circumstances. We should say that the masses were relatively angry at that time. AC initially started with the front page plus the BBS. Under such circumstances, I can’t deny that most of the audience and participants were “Angry Youth,” but we can’t say that AC is an “Angry Youth” website. If you are interested, you can search for the “Carrefour” event after the Olympics torch was assaulted in April. During the whole process, AC constantly opposed the call to boycott Carrefour and further opposed going to Carrefour to do any damage. We had the attitude that to boycott or not to boycott any merchandise voluntarily is a personal volition. Some of the website founders boycotted, and some didn’t. However, calling for a boycott didn’t help solve the problem. I mentioned this point in the Phoenix TV program too–boycotting is okay, but we don’t endorse a boycott. On the other hand, the site also launched a large-scale activity to protect the torch. We can say that the will of the AC management was to hope to, “be reasonable, be powerful, and also be moderate.”

  AC’s current readers have decreased a lot. Before I left at the end of April, I was always rethinking one problem; was AC named correctly? The fact that AC had such a great influence was first because “Anti-CNN” at that time was what many people wanted to say in their minds; the second reason was that the name “Anti-CNN” was able to get the attention of the western media. However, a website cannot build on the foundation of simply opposing somebody. Therefore, I think that the success and failure are all due to one factor. This problem can answer AC’s future. But Anti-CNN played its historical role, providing lessons from experience to many websites afterward, and even providing direction. This is also what I am now carving out. The ideal situation is: AC does not belong to any particular group but to all people. My new website’s name is Global-netizen-media, which is based on this idea.

  Chinese education, to make a comparison, is just like the communist party. Many people are dissatisfied, and many think they can do better. But actually [China's system] in the current stage, although not the best, is the only one that is relatively applicable. My view of Chinese education hasn’t changed too much.

  The main experience I got from AC relates to the netizens. Netizens are a group that are very prone to reflecting the butterfly effect. Netizens also, to a great degree, represent the “people’s voice;” I am trying to understand their discipline.

  The forum is administrated by volunteers. There are four ranks of volunteers: administrators, moderators, club members, and non-club members. The club member registration is very easy. Some volunteers become moderators by selection. The administrators are Rao Jin and me–the two founders. There is keyword censorship when publishing posts; after that, every moderator will take control; provocative or abusive content will be deleted.

  I personally participate in politics to some degree. I attend some meetings and write some articles. I care about facts and further care about some fundamental problems such as energy and food.

  In a “Media Criticism” class held by the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University, the professor conducted a survey in the first class asking how many people believe Chinese media, and how many think that the western media is objective and just. It turned out that only 10 percent believed the Chinese, and over 50 percent believed western media. Those (surveyed) were a group of people who have pretty high media literacy in China; those elites in the society also commonly think this way. However, after three months, I believe nobody would think this way anymore. Actually, it is not AC’s contribution but rather was just accomplished by western media itself. All media works for its own profit; all reports are from the reporter’s own angle and bias, I believe. Including AC.

  AC’s daily viewers surpassed 5 million in April. Among them, 40 percent came from foreign IP addresses. Surely those would include Chinese students abroad and overseas Chinese, but we can also believe that there was a huge number of foreigners. AC did not necessarily present the real China, but it did two things: Let some people realize their perceptions of China were wrong and break the discourse hegemony, and provide people afterward an opportunity for equal communication.

  I’ve only directly participated in AC’s news once. That was the time when AC was attacked by hackers’ DDOS and forced to close down. Normally, I only censored news netizens submitted to AC to guarantee their truthfulness. Usually, I would ask them to provide unprocessed photo and video documents. For any unconfirmed information, I would rather not publish it at all.

  » Read more
  • December 21, 2008 9:16 PM

• China Says Releases More Than 1,000 after Tibet Riots

  

  Shortly after postponing a summit with the European Union in protest over French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to meet with the Dalai Lama, a Chinese official announced through state media that over 1,000 people detained in connection with the Lhasa riots in March have been released. From Reuters:

  China has released more than 1,000 people detained after rioting in Tibet in March, state media on Wednesday quoted a senior official as saying.

  “Most of the released rioters had turned themselves in right after the riot,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted Zhu Weiqun, a vice minister who handles relations with ethnic minorities and religious groups, as saying.

  [...]Zhu, who said there was no “suppression” in Tibet, added that the suspects “had enjoyed all legitimate rights based on Chinese law”, Xinhua paraphrased him as saying.

  “Local courts sent interpreters to help all rioters in the trial and ethnic background and religious beliefs were not considered when handing down sentences,” Zhu said.

  Read more about the Lhasa riots here on CDT.

  » Read more
  • November 27, 2008 3:45 PM

• China Has Sentenced 55 Over Tibet Riot in March

  

  Fifty-five Tibetans have been sentenced for their role in the March riots, according to the New York Times:

  The prison sentences range from three years to life, Xinhua reported.

  The report in Xinhua was based on comments made Tuesday by Baema Cewang, vice chairman of the Tibet regional government, when he met with Michael Andrew Johnson, a visiting member of the Australian House of Representatives.

  Xinhua did not give details of how the sentences were handed down or what sort of trial the prisoners had received, if any.

  » Read more
  • November 6, 2008 11:25 PM

• Jigme, the Tibetan Monk Who Spoke Against Chinese Police, Is Arrested

  

  The political fallout from the March anti-Chinese Tibetan unrest continues.  Jigme, a Tibetan monk who was taken into police custody on suspicion of involvement in the Lhasa riots, has been in hiding since speaking out on the Internet and to the foreign press about his treatment in detainment.  He was arrested today after returning to his monastery.  From the Times Online:

  More than 70 police, including members of the paramilitary People’s Armed Police, raided the dormitory of the Labrang monastery in western China that was Jigme’s home, sources told The Times.

  Police vehicles, their sirens wailing, drew up outside the monastery just after midday. Armed officers poured out and entered Jigme’s cell near the front of the ancient edifice that sprawls up a hillside in Gansu province.

  [...]Friends told The Times that he decided to return to his monastery after police, who had  visited his family, said he would be safe from arrest if he returned to his monastery. With the onset of winter, he decided to believe the authorities.

  CDT’s previous coverage of Jigme’s story, found here, has details of his experiences in prison and includes this YouTube video of his testimony (in Tibetan):

  Read more about the Lhasa riots here on CDT.

  » Read more
  • November 4, 2008 11:16 AM

• Tibet, Six Months On: ‘There Is No Freedom Here’

  

  Reporters for the Guardian have been granted permission to visit Tibet six months after violent riots hit Lhasa, and have produced a video report on their visit:

  Six months after deadly protests against Chinese rule, a semblance of normality has returned to Lhasa. But many Tibetans still live in fear.

  » Read more
  • October 1, 2008 11:09 AM

• Tibet Monk in Hiding Tells of Interrogation, Abuse

  

  A Tibetan monk who was detained on suspicion of involvement with the riots that broke out in Lhasa in March has provided details to the AP of his experience:

  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.

  His telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday gives one of the few detailed first-person accounts of the crackdown on the riots and protests that continue six months after the events.

  Chinese authorities contacted by phone said they had no information about Jigme’s case, making his claims impossible to verify.

  But the basic facts of his story correspond with testimony given by monks and nuns detained in previous campaigns and widely reported by credible overseas human rights groups.

  A video of his testimony is also posted on YouTube (in Tibetan):

  » Read more
  • September 15, 2008 3:10 PM

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