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Chinese Guards Tortured Captured Tibetans, Says Teenage Survivor - Randeep Rames

From the Guardian, via buzzle.com:

More than 30 Tibetans were tortured and incarcerated in a labour camp after their bid to escape across the Himalayas from their homeland failed when Chinese border guards fired on the unarmed group, according to a survivor.

In the first reported account of what happened to those taken from the Himalayas, 15-year-old Jamyang Samten said that he was one of a number of Tibetans who ended up being electrocuted and forced to dig ditches “as a warning” to others.

Samten was part of a group of 75 people who were making their way over the 5,800-metre high Nangpa La Pass last September when Chinese guards opened fire. At least two people - including a Buddhist nun - were killed.

The incident was filmed by a Romanian television producer on a mountaineering expedition, sparking an international outcry. Beijing had claimed that the refugees were shot when border guards were attacked. [Full Text]
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- February 1, 2007 8:43 AM
The YouTube Effect - Mois√©s Na√≠m

Foreign Policy Magazine article uses the shooting of Tibetan refugees by Chinese border guards as an example of the so-called “YouTube effect”:

A video shows a single line of people slowly trudging up a snow-covered footpath. A shot is heard; the first person in line falls. A voice-over says, “They are shooting them like dogs.” Another shot, and another body drops to the ground. A uniformed Chinese soldier fires his rifle again. Then, a group of soldiers examines the fallen bodies.

These images were captured high in the Himalayas by a member of a mountaineering expedition who claims to have stumbled upon the killing. The video first aired on Romanian television, but it only gained worldwide attention when it was posted on YouTube, the popular video-sharing Web site. Human rights groups explained that the slain were a group of Tibetan refugees that included monks, women, and children. According to the Chinese government, the soldiers had fired in self-defense after they were attacked by 70 refugees. The posted video seems to render that explanation absurd. The U.S. ambassador to China quickly lodged a complaint protesting China’s treatment of the refugees.

Welcome to the YouTube effect. [Full text]
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- January 13, 2007 7:19 PM
Song: September 30th (Tibetan Pilgrims) - Chris Pumphrey

The story of the Sept 30th shootings on Mt. Everest is now a song:

High on the slopes of Mt. Everest

September 30th

Trekking Tibetan pilgrims walked

single file up a high mountain pass trail

On their way to see the Dalai Lama

“His Holiness” to them
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- January 10, 2007 6:49 AM
Interviews with Tibetan Survivors of Nangpa La Shooting - Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch has posted the transcripts of interviews with two survivors of the shooting at Nangpa La Pass, when Chinese troops fired on Tibetans fleeing to Nepal, killing at least one nun. Read the interviews here. Read more about the incident, via CDT, here.
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- November 22, 2006 10:23 AM
Repression Under China: Murder in the Mountains - Justin Huggler

The Independent provides another update on the shooting of Tibetan refugees fleeing to Nepal earlier this month:

A few minutes of jerky video footage shot by a Romanian cameraman on a mountaineering trip brought the plight of Tibetans under Chinese rule into Western living rooms this month. For once, the world was able to watch the cruelty of occupation as it played out. In the video, a Chinese border guard calmly opens fire from a mountain ridge on a group of unarmed, defenceless Tibetans below, as they struggled through the snow to escape from occupied Tibet. Two figures drop to the ground.

“They’re shooting them like, like dogs,” says an incredulous voice, one of the other mountaineers standing beside the cameraman. And then the camera trains on the dead body of one of the Tibetans in the distance.

It was a moment that changed the way the world looks at China. In recent years, all the talk has been of a liberalised China, the world’s fastest-growing economy that has put the worst excesses of its totalitarian past behind it. But this was a rare glimpse of another China, and of a modern-day Iron Curtain. And for once, there were witnesses. [Full text]

Human Rights Watch has called for an investigation into the shooting.
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- October 26, 2006 10:52 AM
Three Detained for Allegedly Helping Tibetans Flee - RFA

From Radio Free Asia:

Chinese authorities in Lhasa have detained two Tibetans and one Nepalese ethnic Sherpa for allegedly escorting Tibetan asylum-seekers from China into India.

The detentions on Oct. 9 and 10 follow an incident on Sept. 30 in which Chinese guards opened fire on a group of Tibetans fleeing across the rugged border with Nepal, killing two people. Hundreds of Tibetans flee from China to Nepal and India every year seeking greater freedom of religion and expression.

PSB officers took the precaution of ensuring no one witnessed the Oct. 9 raid, the Tibetan sources said. “When they raided the Tibetan family where two Tibetans were living as tenants, they instructed them not to tell anything,” said one Tibetan. “Before arresting the two Tibetans, they made sure all the neighbors were inside their houses. It seems that nobody including the landlord knew that those two Tibetans were working as [border] escorts.” [Full Text]
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- October 24, 2006 11:15 PM
China takes heat after tragic flight of Tibetan teenager - Daniel Pepper

From the Christian Science Monitor, an update on the Tibetan refugees who were fired on by Chinese guards while escaping to Nepal:

Kelsang Namtso had become a Buddhist nun just last year, at the tender age of 16. Her friend, Dolma Palkyi, 16, wanted to go to India, and meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, before taking her vows.

Dolma says she managed to save nearly $1,400 for the arduous journey through the Himalayas. Half would go to the smugglers. In early September, the girls loaded their backpacks with yak butter, cheese, and barley, and finally set off.

Seventeen days later, Kelsang lay dying in the snow after an attack, captured by Western tourists’ cameras, that is becoming an international incident and a stain on China’s human rights record. [Full text]

-See also from the CSM: “One Tibetan refugee recalls trek to freedom,” the recollections of a man who fled Tibet in 1959 at the age of 11, and “U.N. must ask China to find missing Tibetans - group,” from Reuters.
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- October 24, 2006 3:45 PM
Video contradicts China on shooting of Tibetans - Joseph Kahn

From The New York Times, via The International Herald Tribune:

A Romanian videotape that appears to show Chinese security forces shooting two Tibetan refugees in the Himalayas contradicts Beijing’s claim that the refugees were shot when soldiers acted in self-defense.

China on Thursday acknowledged that soldiers had killed one refugee and wounded another in an incident that occurred Sept. 30. Xinhua, the official news agency, said the soldiers had acted only after about 70 refugees seeking to cross illegally into Nepal from China attacked border troops.

The video, taken a long range, shows a slow-moving, single-file line of Tibetan refugees climbing over a snow- covered mountain pass followed by Chinese troops. A rifle shot is heard and the first climber in the pack falls to the ground, followed by the climber at the tail end of the group.

A separate shot shows a uniformed Chinese soldier firing a rifle shot. It then shows several gun-toting soldiers examining the shooting victims and escorting some detainees back to a camp. [Full Text]

See CDT’s previous coverage of the shooting incident. See also official photos released by the Chinese government of the incident (via The Opposite End of China.)
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- October 15, 2006 7:52 AM
Video footage of Nangpa Pass shooting refutes official Chinese statement

From International Campaign for Tibet:

Video footage of Tibetans who were crossing into Nepal being shot by Chinese border police on September 30 refutes official claims that the troops fired “in self-defence”.

The video footage, taken by a Romanian cameraman who was at advance base camp on Mount Cho Oyo at the time, depicts a line of Tibetans walking uphill through the snow on the Nangpa Pass when a shot is heard and one of the figures falls to the ground. The video clearly depicts that the Tibetans had their backs to the soldiers, were unarmed, and offered no resistance. The nun who died, Kelsang Namtso, appears to have been shot in the back. [Full Text]
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- October 13, 2006 8:21 PM
Chinese Government Claims Soldiers Acted in Self-Defense in Shooting Tibetan Refugees

A mountain climber who witnessed the shooting by Chinese troops of Tibetan refugees trying to cross the border into Nepal has posted photos of the incident online. See also “British climber describes fatal attack on Tibetans” from Reuters, and more recent news on the topic.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government has given a statement on the incident, declaring that the soldiers were acting in self-defense. From AP:

The official Xinhua News Agency said the clash occurred on Sept. 30 ” the same day that foreign climbers and human rights groups allege that Chinese border guards opened fire on dozens of unarmed Tibetan refugees as they tried to flee Chinese-ruled Tibet, killing at least one. The different accounts appeared to be about the same incident.

The Xinhua report said that the people trying to cross the border attacked the soldiers, who were then “forced to defend themselves.” It did not say if the people trying to cross the border were Tibetan, whether they were armed, or give other details. [Full text]

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- October 12, 2006 10:44 AM
China tries to gag climbers who saw Tibet killings - Leonard Doyle

From the Independent:

Chinese diplomats in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu are tracking down and trying to silence hundreds of Western climbers and Sherpas who witnessed the killing of Tibetan refugees on the Nangpa La mountain pass last week.

This ominous development comes as fears grow for the safety of a group of Tibetan children, aged between six and 10, who were marched away after at least two refugees including a nun, were shot dead. [Full text]

Read a first person account from a Romanian climber who witnessed the killing. More information from climbers is available on Mounteverest.net, though some bloggers feel not enough climbers are coming forward to tell their story.
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- October 10, 2006 6:01 PM