A 27-year-old Tibetan man has died after setting himself on fire today in China protest. Tsering Dhondup self-immolated today around at 3.15pm local time in Drachen Yultso village, Chungchu township in Ngaba county (Chinese: Aba).

His father and many of his relatives are known to be working Chinese government officials.

Today’s incident brings the total number of self-immolations since 2009 to 97.  including 81 last year in protest against China’s strict control over Tibet’s Buddhist culture and a suffocating security presence in Tibetan regions.

This comes less than a week after a Tibetan man died after self-immolating in Gansu province. At The Guardian, Tania Branigan reports that seven Tibetan “abetters” have been detained for organizing and encouraging self-immolations, including one that occurred in Gansu in October:

Chinese police have detained seven people for helping persuade a Tibetan villager to set fire to himself, state media report. The move is the latest attempt by authorities to curb the spate of self-immolations in western China.

[...]The state news agency Xinhua said officers in Gansu province, north-west China, believed the fatal self-immolation in October of 26-year-old Sangye Gyatso, in Hezuo city, was “masterminded by key members of the Tibetan Youth Congress of the overseas Dalai clique”, according to a statement.

The officers allege a friend of Sangye Gyatso who had joined a monastery in India – where many Tibetans and their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, live in exile – had introduced him to ideas about Tibetan independence when he made a trip home to China.

The trend of self-immolation in protest of Chinese policies have been consuming the lives of Tibetans since 2009, though the frequency of occurrences spiked in late 2011. A scholarly debate has emerged around the efficacy and religious orthodoxy of this method of dissent. Recently Wang Lixiong, husband of prominent Tibetan blogger Woeser, analyzed the last words of self-immolators in an attempt to uncover their motives.

Also see prior CDT coverage of Tibet protest and self-immolation.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ethnic minority, ngaba, self-immolations, Tibet, tibet protest, Tibet protests
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

A Tibetan man set himself ablaze and died Thursday in a central Tibetan county in the second self-immolation protest challenging Chinese rule in the past week, according to Tibetan sources.

Gudrub, 41, shouted slogans calling for Tibetan freedom and for the return to Tibet of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama as he self-immolated in Driru [in Chinese, Biru] county in the Nagchu prefecture of the Tibet Autonomous Region, a source told RFA’s Tibetan service, speaking on condition of anonymity.

[...]Gudrub, who returned to Tibet in 2005 after studying at the exile Sogar School in Dharamsala, India, was a resident of Kali village in the Shagchu subdistrict of Driru county, and was an enthusiastic reader of Tibetan history, sources said.

A writer and poet, Gudrub had been known to post about the situation in Tibet on his personal blog. Voice of America recalls one of his posts from earlier this year:

This past March, Gudrup blogged about the anti-China protests that had gripped southwestern China and Tibet, writing on March 14 “Tibetans who refuse to denounce His Holiness the Dalai Lama or accept China’s rule on Tibet are secretly killed or made to disappear.”

In the same post, Gudrup called on fellow Tibetans to “win the battle through truth, by shooting arrows upon our lives.”

He also warned Tibetans “are sharpening our nonviolent movement… declaring the reality of Tibet by burning our own bodies to call for freedom.”

The count of those who have self-immolated and lost their lives doing so varies depending on the source. A post today from Tibetan blogger Woeser tallies 58 self-immolators since 2009 (55 inside Tibetan regions of China, and 3 in the exile community), 46 of whom have perished. The recent post by Woeser [zh] also translates a poem that Gudrub left behind on his blog from Tibetan into Chinese:

Brothers and sisters of the snow-covered Tibetan land, when looking back at our past, very rarely is it a joyful scene—I have only regret, anger, heartbreak and tears. When I welcomed the year of the Water Dragon, I prayed for health, peace and the fulfillment of wishes. At the same time, I hoped for the perseverance of our ethnic pride even when confronting hardship and loss. We mustn’t lose our faith, we must strengthen our unity.

雪域藏地的兄弟姐妹们，回顾我们的过去，只有遗憾、愤怒、伤心和泪水，很少有兴高采烈的景象。正值在迎接水龙新年时，祈祷大家健康平安，万事如意，同时希望保持民族自豪感，即使面对痛苦和损失，也不要失去信心，务必加.团结

Inside China, there has been little media coverage of Tibetan protests or ensuing government crackdowns. The news of this most recent self-immolation comes just days after Radio Free Asia reported on harsh sentences handed to 4 Tibetans for supporting self-immolation and leaking information:

Chinese courts have ordered four Tibetan men jailed to between seven and 11 years after accusing them of supporting a self-immolation protest and of leaking news of protests against Chinese rule to “outside contacts,” according to Tibetan sources.

[...]During the first week of September, a Chinese court sentenced Kirti monk Lobsang Tsultrim, 19, to 11 years in prison, and fellow monk Lobsang Jangchub, 17, to an eight-year term, Tsering and Yeshi said.

[...]Separately, a court in Sichuan’s Barkham (in Chinese, Ma’erkang) county sentenced a monk and a layman to long prison terms for “leaking news from inside Tibet to outside contacts,” Tsering and Yeshe said, citing local sources.

[...]The court also sentenced a layman, Bu Thubdor, 25, who was also detained in November, to a seven-and-a-half year term on the same charge, Tsering and Yeshe said.

On a related note, the Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed concern surrounding the unknown whereabouts of Jigme Gyatso, a former colleague of Dhondup Wangchen. In 2008, Wangchen made the documentary “Leaving Fear Behind,” after which he was charged with state subversion. Filming for Tibet, a site dedicated to Wangchen, explains how social media is being used in the search for Jigme Gyatso:

At great personal risk, Tibetan netizens have been posting on social media sites and alerting each other about Jigme Gyatso’s disappearance. A post on the Sina Weibo microblogging site from September 30, 2012 (screenshot above) says that “Jigme Gyatso has been missing for the last 10 days”.

Another post also from September 30 on Tibetan blog-hosting site Sangdhor.com titled “Looking for Jigdrel’s Jigme” says in Tibetan, “It has been over 10 days since we are not knowing the whereabouts of Jigme, maker of the film “Leaving Fear Behind”, also known as Golog Jigme. This is causing family and friends to worry. Looking for information about him, please contact us immediately, thank you.” This post was deleted from Sangdhor.com very quickly.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dalai Lama, Dhondup Wangchen, netizens, self-immolations, tibet protest, Tibet protests, Woeser
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Lungtok, a monk from the restive Kirti monastery in Ngaba, and another Tibetan, believed to be a layperson and identified as Tashi, torched themselves at around 6:00 p.m. local time to highlight their opposition to Chinese rule in Tibetan-populated areas, a Tibetan source in the area told RFA.

“A large contingent of police and armed PSB [Public Security Bureau] personnel arrived at the site of the self-immolation and imposed stern restrictions in the area,” the source said.

“The local Tibetans gathered in the area clashed with police and the situation became very tense. One Tibetan died from being beaten by the police.”

A woman who answered the phone at the Aba police department denied that any immolations or clashes between police and Tibetans had taken place, according to The Associated Press. Forty-eight Tibetans have self-immolated since March 2011, according to The New York Times, and many of the incidents have taken place near the Kirti monastery in Aba as Tibetans in the region have grown tired of Chinese rule.

Elsewhere, in Qinghai province, Radio Free Asia reported that nearly 500 Tibetans protested in the streets on Tuesday after they claimed that police attached a car of traveling Tibetans on Monday night:

Witnesses to the Monday assault described the Chinese police who attacked the Tibetans as “drunk,” local sources told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“On Aug. 13, local police, who appeared to be drunk, stopped four Tibetans traveling in their vehicle and harshly questioned them,” sources said.

“The harassment reached a point where the police and the Tibetans clashed, and the Tibetans were severely beaten.”

Several months ago, state-run CCTV produced a documentary blaming the Dalai Lama for inciting the string of self-immolations in the region. Woeser, a prominent Tibetan writer placed under house arrest in Beijing in March as tensions rose ahead of China’s National People’s Congress, discussed the documentary in a post on her blog in June. From the blog High Peaks Pure Earth, which translated Woeser’s post:

Up to the present day, CCTV has not broadcast the documentary to audiences within China. We all remember how CCTV, after the protests that erupted across the whole of Tibet in 2008, was quick to make a documentary called “Records of the Lhasa Riots” that was ceremoniously released during prime time and broadcast over and over again; it even became available on DVD. The result of the large-scale marketing campaign is best described by the words of a retired cadre who used to be engaged in ethnic matters: “the rifts between two ethnic groups that could have still been mended have been torn apart, what is done cannot be undone.”

So, why did the authorities decide to, this time, only broadcast the documentary to audiences abroad and not to people within China? Is it only to prevent Han Chinese, the majority of all Chinese people, to learn any more about the current situation in Tibet and risk that they start doubting the claims by the authorities that “Today, Tibetans are experiencing development and happiness as never before in history”? This is probably one reason, but the more important reason is that they are afraid of provoking the several millions of Tibetans living in Tibet and with them also the much-feared Uyghurs and Mongolians. This documentary only talks about 13 Tibetan self-immolators, but some of the video recordings and images shown here are revealed to the public for the very first time and display the great courage of the Tibetan self-immolators; on top of that, the various kinds of explanations offered by CCTV are full of ridiculous loopholes.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aba county, CCTV, Dalai Lama, self-immolations, Sichuan, tibet protest, Woeser
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China criticized British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday for meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, saying it amounts to support for Tibet’s independence from Chinese rule.

The British government ignored Beijing’s objections in going ahead with Monday’s meeting in London, and doing so “hurts the feelings of the Chinese people,” meddles in China’s affairs and harms Chinese-British relations, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. He said Britain now needs to take actions to repair the damage.

“We are strongly discontented and firmly opposed to it,” Hong told reporters at a daily briefing. “We call on the British side to earnestly respond to China’s solemn demand, stop conniving at and supporting separatist attempts to achieve Tibetan independence, take practical measures to eliminate the terrible impact and take actions to preserve Chinese-British relations.”

Hong said his ministry lodged a protest with the British Embassy in Beijing and the Chinese Embassy in London delivered the same message to the British government.

According to Reuters, China has responded similarly in the past to political leaders meeting with the Dalai Lama:

China’s response echoed many previous statements about the Dalai Lama’s meetings with foreign political leaders, suggesting that China will confine its reaction to angry words.

British ministers believe that who they see is a matter for them,” said a British Foreign Office spokeswoman in London. “If they choose to see someone, it does not necessarily indicate they support that individual’s viewpoint.”

The Dalai Lama told reporters on Monday that China is beset by a moral crisis, widespread corruption and lawlessness, leading millions of Chinese to seek solace in Buddhism.

He was in London to receive the $1.7 million Templeton prize for his work affirming the spiritual dimension of life.

This recent source of tension comes after China dismissed claims of plots to assassinate the Dalai Lama. AFP adds:

China has accused the Dalai Lama of “deceiving the world” and “spreading false information” after Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader said he was warned of a plot by Chinese agents to assassinate him.

The Buddhist monk made the allegation in an interview with Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, saying he had been told that agents were planning to poison him using Tibetan women posing as devotees seeking his blessing.

“The Dalai Lama always engages in anti-China splittist activities globally wearing his religious cloak, spreading false information, deceiving the world and confusing the public,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

“His most recent statement is not even worth refuting,” he told reporters Monday.

Read more about the Dalai Lama and Tibet Protests via CDT.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Britain, Dalai Lama, tibet politics, tibet protest
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Soldiers with helmets, rifles, sticks and shields march in rows along this monastery town’s main road against a backdrop of snow-speckled mountains, while police stare at passing cars, scanning license plates and faces of passengers for unwelcome visitors. In school dormitory rooms in the county, there are random checks for books that go against the ruling Communist Party establishment — and the constant questions about political leanings.

“They’ll ask you questions and if you answer with your true feelings, they will be very unhappy. If you keep quiet, they will also be unhappy,” said a Tibetan who teaches at a school in Aba county and who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

“They want you to say that the party is good and their policies are good,” he added.

Teachers also are banned from making any mention — positive or negative — of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, the teacher said during an interview in the neighboring county of Hongyuan.

Security appears to be tightening ahead of a number of Tibetan anniversaries this month, including commemorations of deadly anti-government riots in Lhasa in 2008 and the Dalai Lama’s flight from the region in 1959. China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will also open their annual sessions in the next several days, with The China Daily reporting that stability is expected to become a buzzword during the meetings.Wong also mentions that authorities have cut  Internet and cell phone text messaging services in the area, and Voice of America reports that the regional Communist Party chief has urged authorities to clamp down:

The state-run Tibet Daily quotes regional Communist Party chief Chen Quanguo as saying that maintaining stability in the Himalayan region “means everything. Unstable elements must be nipped in the bud and all work at maintaining stability must be deepened.”

He also said security forces “must crush hostile forces” led by the Dalai Lama — the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader who is widely revered outside China, while accused by Beijing of fomenting rebellion in Tibetan regions.

Back in Beijing, The New York Times reports that police have placed a prominent Tibetan writer under house arrest to prevent her from accepting a prize from the Dutch Embassy:

The writer, Woeser, said in a telephone interview in the afternoon that there were police officers downstairs in her apartment building, where she lives on the 20th floor. She said she was unsure of the exact number, but had noticed at least two men in a car outside the main door and others waiting nearby. She said Beijing police officers came to her apartment on Wednesday night and told her she would not be allowed to receive the award. “I told the embassy last night that I probably won’t be able to go this evening,” said Woeser, who like many Tibetans goes by only one name.

The embassy is giving Woeser an award from the Prince Claus Fund. The fund’s Web site says the award is given out annually to individuals and organizations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America “for their outstanding achievements in the field of culture and development.”

Woeser, who has written critically of the Chinese government’s policies in Tibet, said she had planned to go the Dutch ambassador’s residence on Thursday at 6 p.m. to have dinner and receive the award. The ceremony was originally to have been at the embassy but was recently moved to the residence.

See also an early poem written by Woeser in 1984 as a first-year college student studying at the faculty of Chinese language at the Southwest University for Nationalities, as well as recent CDT coverage of “China’s Misguided Religious Battle.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aba country, CPPCC, Dalai Lama, NPC, security crackdown, self-immolations, Sichuan, tibet protest
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Tibetan activists identified the nun as Tenzin Choedon, who was quickly taken away by Chinese security forces. Her nunnery, located in Aba county, east of Tibet, was immediately sealed off.

The nun’s death brings the number of Tibetans who have died from self-immolation in the past year to more than one dozen.

The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts reports from Aba on the government’s efforts to block access to the region in the wake of the self-immolations and other protests:

At the nearby Kirti monastery, Chinese officers in fire trucks keep a close eye on pilgrims prostrating themselves, in case their devotion turns to immolation.

Outsiders are not supposed to see this. The Chinese authorities have gone to great lengths to block access to Aba, in north-western Sichuan, which is home to more than half the 23 monks, nuns and lay Buddhists who have set fire to themselves in acts of defiance aimed at the Chinese Communist party in the past two years.

The authorities have blocked internet and mobile phone signals. Checkpoints have been set up on surrounding roads to keep outside observers, particularly foreign journalists, away.

But after a 10-hour drive through mountain valleys and snow-covered plains, the Guardian was able to get into Aba and witness how the authorities are trying to quell dissent with security, propaganda and “re-education” campaigns. These tactics have had little success. Despite flooding Aba with security personnel, the protests continue.

See also the accompanying video report from the Guardian.

China Media Project reported that a Sina Weibo post linking to this Guardian story was quickly deleted.

The death of Tenzin Choedon follows reports of four more self-immolations last week. A letter written in 1965 by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nath Hanh to Martin Luther King, Jr. provides a Buddhist perspective on self-immolation as an act of protest. Read more about the phenomenon of self-immolation by Tibetans via CDT.

Update: Shanghaiist reports that Xinhua has acknowledged the death of Tenzin Choedon by self-immolation.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aba county, self-immolations, tibet protest
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Tibetan sources in exile said at least one man was reported killed and many more were injured when police opened fire on Tibetan protesters who tried to stop them from detaining a person who had put up a poster challenging Chinese rule.

[...]Ngaba is one of several Tibetan-populated regions of western China that have been rocked in recent years by protests, including 17 self-immolations, against rule by Beijing.

The poster declared that “Tibetans will never abandon their struggle and will continue to organize more campaigns until the demands of Tibetans who have self-immolated are met,” Tsering and Yeshe said.

An article in The New York Times mentions press restrictions in the area:

Foreign journalists in Sichuan who tried to drive to the affected region were turned back at security checkpoints that had been erected more than 60 miles from where the shootings took place. One overseas activist group, Free Tibet, said its informants in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, had reported a heavy increase in Chinese security forces there as well.

Lobsang Sangay, the Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile released a video to the AFP, calling on the international community to intervene on behalf of Tibetans in China.

In a recently published interview on the Houston Chronicle’s website, Lobsang Sangay spoke to the English-speaking international community about Tibetan self-immolations. He talks about what is leading Tibetans to take such drastic measures, and the Buddhist view of self-immolation as an act of protest:

Q: Why are monks and nuns self-immolating in Tibet?

A: Repressive policies of China have pushed them to the brink of desperation. Members of the Communist Party of China dictate what monks and nuns should do, how they should pray, and who should be allowed into the monasteries.

[...]

Q: Does Buddhism allow self-immolation?

A: It’s a complex issue. One could refer to Jataka tales, which concern the previous births of the Buddha. In one story, the Buddha, in a previous incarnation, gives up his body to feed a starving tigress and her four cubs. Some other stories also talk about self-sacrifice by the Buddha.

Although suicide is violent and prohibited in Buddhism, some Buddhists believe it depends on the motivation. If you do it out of hatred and anger, then it is negative. But if you do it for a pure cause … it’s such a complex theological issue. You can’t go either way or have a definitive answer. But the action is tragic, so painful.

New Tang Dynasty TV posted a video today, in which they outline a policy that will bring an abundance of CCP symbols to Tibetan populated areas. From the transcript:

January 22nd, 2012, the eve of Chinese New Year. Chinese officials in the Tibet Autonomous Region held a ceremony to unveil a portrait of four Communist leaders: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. They go on to state that they will send these portraits, as well as Communist flags, to villages, homes, and temples in the region.

[...]In December 2011, authorities in Tibet introduced the “Nine Must-Haves” policy. It dictates nine items that all temples must display or carry portraits of Communist leaders, the Communist flag and a copy of the state-run People’s Daily.

Crazy Crab, the artist responsible for the Hexie Farm satirical cartoons, has been aiming many of his recent pieces at the situation in Tibet. His latest addition ridicules the “Nine-Must-Haves” policy:

For translations of Chinese Twitter comments about the protests in Tibet, see Oiwan Lam’s recent post for Global Voices. Also see previous coverage of Tibetan protests, via CDT.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: police violence, protest, self-immolations, Tibet, tibet protest
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

That day, I woke up at about 6.30am and knew what I had to do. I’d seen the news of the brothers and sisters inside Tibet burning themselves, and I knew that is what I needed to do to get the world’s attention.

[...]Before leaving home, I put a statement on Facebook and then I left. I was not frightened. I felt proud to be doing something for my nation. I was ready to die.

[...]I suffered bad burns and I still have some dressings on one leg. There will always be scars there, of course. But I did not die. All the same, I would be ready to do it again. That is how strongly I feel about the situation there in Tibet.

In a recent post on her personal blog, Mumbai based journalist Priyanka Borpujari mentions Sherab Tsedor and the importance of Facebook in keeping the Tibetan community in Mumbai connected:

[...]On November 4, 25-year-old Sherab Tsedor had set himself on fire outside the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi, in solidarity with the 11 monks who had immolated themselves. Alert cops managed to rush him to a hospital. Today, Tsedor updates his progress in healing on Facebook.

“Facebook is one of the best mediums for us in Mumbai to stay connected,” said Dolkar Tenzin. She created the ‘Tibetan Mumbaikars’ community page on Facebook, and updates it with news and events pertaining to Tibet.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: protest, self-immolations, Tibet, tibet protest
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Qiu Xiang, 35, set herself on fire at a road crossing in Dawu county of Ganzi, called Kandze by Tibetans, in Sichuan province, the state news agency said.

The nun was from the county’s Tongfoshan village, Xinhua said. The report said it was unclear why she killed herself and the local government had launched an investigation.

Last week, a Tibetan Buddhist monk doused himself in fuel and set himself ablaze in Ganzi.

Most people in Ganzi and neighbouring Aba, the site of eight self-immolations, are ethnic Tibetan herders and farmers, and many see themselves as members of a wider Tibetan region encompassing the official Tibetan Autonomous Region and other areas across the highlands of China’s west.

Read more about the Tibetan self-immolations via CDT. The Dalai Lama has blamed the self-immolations on China’s policies in Tibet, while the government has tried to censor all online news of the immolations.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: self-immolations, tibet protest
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall