Tibet-China-Olympics Update: May 14, 2008
Filed Under Tibet, Human Rights, China | Posted on May 14, 2008
The volume of news and commentary has slowed considerably in recent weeks. This is unfortunate, as the repression and brutality of China against Tibetans has only increased. Here’s a sampling of what’s still out there:
Escaped Tibetan rioter tells of Chinese repression
Before fleeing across a mountainous border, Kusang Sonam says he hid for 12 days from Chinese forces searching for Tibetans who rioted against Beijing’s rule in the Himalayan region.
“I knew I would be dead if they had caught me,” the 38-year-old clothes trader and father-of-one told AFP in his first media interview at a refugee centre in India.
Sonam said after four days of protests in Lhasa, knife-wielding Chinese troops attacked Tibetan demonstrators on March 14, sparking retaliation and then a massive manhunt for protesters in the capital of the autonomous region.
Bush, Hu discuss quake, Tibet in call: foreign ministry
US President George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao discussed the devastating earthquake and the situation in Tibet by telephone on Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry said.
Hu reiterated that Tibet was an internal matter for China to handle. He said he hoped Washington could “cautiously and appropriately” handle the relevant issues with an “objective and fair attitude,” the statement said.
Tibetan Protestors in Nepal snub Chinese ire
Cold-shouldering Chinese Ambassador Zheng Xialing’s serious dissatisfaction over the handling of Tibetan protests by Nepal at a program yesterday, over 300 Tibetans rallied in front of the Chinese Consulate again this afternoon. Many of the protestors bared their chests painted with the Tibetan flag and had scrawled slogans demanding resolution to the Tibet crisis.
Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Criticize Tibetan Protesters and Nepal Government
On Monday, Chinese ambassador to Nepal Zheng Xianglin urged the Nepal government to take strict action against the separatist Tibetans demonstrating in Katmandu, Nepal newspapers reported on Tuesday.
At an interaction at ‘Reporters ‘Club Nepal’, Chinese ambassador said, “The activities of these monks and nuns should be clearly defined and they should not be allowed to participate in political activities”.
German Leaders ‘Lack Backbone’ For Shunning Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is about to visit Germany for four days but Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has refused an offer to meet him, Chancellor Angela Merkel is in Latin America and President Horst Köhler doesn’t have time. German media commentators say Germany’s leaders should clear their schedules for the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
The Dalai Lama’s four-day visit to Germany starting on Friday has caused a row in the German government over the refusal of top officials, including Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to meet with him.
Leading members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats have criticized Steinmeier, a member of the center-left Social Democrats. A number of media commentators say Germany’s political class is being spineless by shunning the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
Merkel, who angered China last September when she received the Dalai Lama during a previous visit, will not be meeting him this time because she is on a tour of Latin America. President Horst Köhler’s office has announced that he doesn’t have time to meet him.
“I would have expected Steinmeier to show more courage,” said Erwin Huber, leader of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of the Christian Democrats. “The Dalai Lama is a symbolic figure for downtrodden Tibet, so you can’t reject an offer to talk to him so coolly and undiplomatically.”
Authorities in China’s southwestern Sichuan province have detained 14 nuns for protesting despite a massive security presence and handed jail terms to seven others for joining widespread demonstrations in March, Tibetan sources say.
The 14 nuns from nunneries in Kardze [in Chinese, Ganzi] demonstrated May 11-12 in a central area of Kardze, near the local television station, witnesses said.
They were protesting the detention of two nuns from Drakar nunnery—Bumo Lhaga, 32, and Sonam Dekyi, 30—who were detained April 23 for calling for the return of Tibet’s exiled leader, the Dalai Lama.
U.S. Senators Ask White House for Action Plan on Tibet
On May 9, U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Joe Biden (D-DE), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and John Kerry (D-MA) wrote to President Bush asking the Administration to take a number of concrete steps to addresses the ongoing crisis in Tibet. The letter is a follow-up to a April 23 Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing on Tibet chaired by Sen. Boxer, in which she and other senators called for an action plan on Tibet, and which featured Special Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama Lodi Gyari and ICT Chairman Richard Gere.
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who testified at the April 23 hearing, will appear before the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee (chaired by Sen. Biden) on May 15, and is expected to field questions about the situation in Tibet and the progress of an action plan.
Dalai Lama urges international media presence in Tibet
The Dalai Lama urged China and the international community to facilitate an international media presence in Tibet, in an interview with Polish television Monday.
Without going into detail of how he proposed getting foreign journalists into tightly controlled Tibet, the exiled Tibetan leader said their presence there was essential “to see what is happening.”
He said recent talks between China and his envoys were made possible because Chinese leaders were beginning to be “concerned” at world opinion about the situation in Tibet, just months away from the Beijing Olympics.
But asked whether he thought China was serious or “just buying time” by agreeing to the talks, the Dalai Lama told TVP2: “Too early to say — I don’t know.”
British PM to Greet Dalai Lama Away from Downing Street
Britain says Prime Minister Gordon Brown will meet the Dalai Lama later this month in London, but officials say the meeting will not take place at Number 10 Downing Street.
Instead, Mr. Brown will meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader at the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace. Brown critics say the move is aimed at appeasing China, which routinely opposes moves by Western governments to greet the Dalai Lama as a head of state.
China’s Organ Harvesting Questioned Again by Two UN Special Rapporteurs
Two United Nations Special Rapporteurs have reiterated their previous findings on China’s organ harvesting. Once again, they requested the Chinese government to fully explain the allegation of taking vital organs from Falun Gong practitioners and the source of organs for the sudden increase in organ transplants that has been going on in China since the year 2000.
Nepal Arrests 560 Tibetan Women, Nuns
Nepalese police have arrested some 560 Tibetan women, including Buddhist nuns, after breaking up several all-women protests for Tibet.
For Tibetans, Punishment Comes in Many Kinds
ast Wednesday an estimated 5,000 officers of the “Public Security Bureau” and the “People’s Armed Police” surrounded the vast Labrang Monastery in Sangchu County, Kanlho “TAP”, Amdo (Ch: Gansu province), conducting a raid which netted around 140 monks. The following day, May 8, a large number of unarrested monks protested and called for their release. The authorities released all but 18, but the monks continued demanding all be released. On Friday a further 11 were set free, but the monks continued protesting despite additional armed forces sent into the monastery. The authorities adamantly refused to set free the last seven, and dared the monks to take a “counter measure”. The monks are said to be committed to securing the last seven releases.
Chinese Lawyers suppressed for offering legal service to Tibetans
The 21 Chinese lawyers who signed their signature and openly announced that they would provide to Tibetans arrested such legal services as legal representatives and defense lawyers were severely suppressed by the authorities.
Zhou Yongkang, the standing member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the party secretary of the Central Political and Law Commission, sent a special memo concerning this issue; the law firms where these lawyers are working were forbidden by the bureaus/departments of judicature to accept the entrust by the Tibetans, and the annual inspection and registration of their law firms would also be postponed.
China floats inviting Dalai Lama to Olympics: Tibet MP
A senior Chinese official has asked whether Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama would agree to attend the Beijing Olympics to ease recent tensions, a Tibet government-in-exile legislator said on Monday. The Dalai Lama would consider going, the law maker said.
China Made Counterfeit Network Devices Sold to U.S. Government, FBI Investigating
The FBI is investigating whether counterfeit routers and computer hardware from China installed in U.S. government computer networks might provide a secret gateway for hackers to tap into secure government databases.
Sources told ABC News the counterfeit hardware could represent a major breach to national security. An FBI PowerPoint presentation, which somehow ended up on a Web site, lays out the concerns and the breadth of what has been a far-reaching investigation.
Nearly 5,000 Africans Forced to Leave China on New Visa Rules for Olympics
Africans living in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou are being forced to leave the country because of new visa policies, the South China Morning Post reported, citing an unidentified spokesman for the community.
Nearly half of the 10,000 Africans in the city have already been forced to leave because their visa-renewal applications have been denied and at least 100 people are stranded in Macau without enough money to return home, the newspaper reported.
China Tightens Business Visa Control for Beijing Olympics
The Chinese government has revealed the recent tightening of restrictions on visas is part of its Olympic security measures. China’s stricter interpretation of visa rules has led to concerns that thousands of foreigners may be forced out and complaints from businessmen that they cannot get in.
Japan: Olympic ceremony boycott sought
Former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma said Sunday that Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda should not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics due to China’s crackdown in Tibet and increased military spending.
Fukuda “needs to take a firm response (to show) that he cannot attend the ceremony as the representative of Japan, unless we see prospects of resolution” of those issues, Hiranuma said on a Fuji TV talk show.
India Targeted by China Cyberattacks
The Indian government has released information that Indian websites, over the last 18 months, have been subject to online assaults originating from communist China.
In the highest-profile case in early April, Chinese hackers broke into systems owned by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). The ministry does not think that any sensitive information was accessed, but they believe there was indeed a data breach.
Senior government officials interviewed by the Times of India have said that the attacks go far beyond what would be considered generic “hacking”. Several of the ministers, in private interviews with the newspaper, stated that the pattern of the attacks is very eerie and sophisticated, and that there is no doubt that a powerful group is coordinating these attacks.
Thousands march in France in solidarity with Tibet
Two months after the revolt in Tibet, hundreds of Tibetans, French Tibet supporters, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Burmese and others marched today in the streets of Paris in solidarity with Tibet. Tibetan Community of France and others called for a national day of protest here in France.
Thupten Gyatso, the president of Tibetan Community in France said that “since March 10, the Chinese government has continued a policy of military repression against Tibetan civilians with impunity. Today hundreds of Tibetans have been killed and several thousands of Tibetans are languishing in prison for expressing their political opinion.” He called on the Chinese authorities to release all the prisoners immediately.
He also called for free access to media in Tibet, immediate cessation of repression in Tibet and direct negotiation between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Hu Jintao on the future of Tibet.
China: Arrest and Detention of House Church Christians Spread Out
China Aid Association (CAA) reports China’s intensified campaign against House Church Christians is spreading in recent months: many leaders arrested, bible schools raided, and Christian books confiscated.
2 Responses to “Tibet-China-Olympics Update: May 14, 2008”
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Dalai, where are you????
There are 19% of Tibetan residents in the earthquake epicenter in Sichuan. Do you care them? Do you even care them a little bit?
I’m sorry, but the “stupid question of the year” contest ended last month. It’s too bad — your question would certainly have been a contender.