By Tenzin Sangmo
New Delhi, June 22 – Amnesty International’s June 18 report on People’s Republic of China: Tibet Autonomous Region: Access Denied gives a detailed account of the Chinese government’s tight control over the region accusing them of torturing and beating peaceful protestors into submission. The eleven page report states;
“Despite dozens of eyewitness accounts of the beatings and arrests of hundreds of protestors, and the use of lethal force, Chinese authorities have provided no on-going information of these protests, nor have they acknowledged the death of any Tibetans at the hands of Chinese security forces beyond the one ‘insurgent’. The sharp discrepancy in reports by Chinese government and Tibetan sources highlights the need for independent scrutiny.”
The Delhi Tibetan Solidarity Committee and Amnesty International India together on Saturday urged the Chinese government to provide information about the 5,500 people detained during the protests last March and to cease all arbitrary arrests respecting the fundamental rights of Tibetan people to freedom of expression, opinion and belief.
They also called on Nepal to release the three Tibetan community leaders Kelsang Chung, Director of the UN funded Tibetan Refugee Reception Center, Ngawang Sangmo, President and Tashi Dolma, Vice President of the Regional Tibetan Women’s Association who were arrested from their homes on June 19 with a stretch of 90 days in judicial custody charged under a public security offence related to local protests against the Chinese crackdown in Tibet.
In their urgent action appeal to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Amnesty International India pushed for the following agendas to be implemented:
Beijing Olympics and the Legacy Reverie:
- Stop Executions
- Fair trials for all
- Respect the rights of rights defenders
- Freedom from censorship.
Around 400 local Tibetans from Majnu Ka Tilla and Ladakh Budhvihar were present at Jantar Mantar to observe the injustice meted out to Tibetan refugees in Nepal by authorities. Tibetan establishments were closed for the day and many turned out to protest against the brutal Chinese regime and the security lockdown in Lhasa, Tibet. Voicing strong disapproval at the two subsequent events, they raised slogans calling for non-discriminatory hearing of those under arrest and application of basic human rights in Tibet.
Guest speakers included Former Member of Rajya Sabha Bashisht Narayan Singh and Dr. Anand Kumar, Professor of Social Sciences at JNU, New Delhi.
Reassuring Amnesty International India’s support to the Tibet cause, local representative Mr. Javed briefly addressed the crowd. He expressed his greatest sympathy and heartfelt solidarity with the sufferings of six million Tibetans across the world. He further stated that they will always stand with what is just and advocate human rights in every way possible.
