By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, Feb 16: Following yesterday’s solo protests by a Tibetan Buddhist monk Lobsang Lhundup, 15 other Tibetans from Lithang County staged a similar peaceful protest earlier this morning, according to Dharamsala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.
Sonam Tenpa, a 29-year old younger brother of Lobsang Lhundup, along with fourteen other Tibetans staged a peaceful protest march at Lithang main market square this morning at around 11:40 AM (Beijing Standard Time), TCHRD said in a press statement released here today.
According to the centre’s source, the demonstration lasted for around two hours, before all the protesters were being brutally beaten, manhandled and forcibly loaded into military trucks by the Chinese Public Security Bureau (PSB) and People’s Armed Police (PAP).
The source said that Sonam Tenpa, who apparently led the peaceful protest, was carrying a huge portrait of the Dalai Lama adorned with a traditional Tibetan auspicious scarf.
Like Lhundup, the “peaceful Tibetan protesters took to the street of Lithang main market” chanting the slogans: “Long Live the Dalai Lama,” “Independence for Tibet,” “Swift return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet” and “No Losar (Tibetan New Year) celebration this year.”
According to eyewitnesses’ accounts from the site of the demonstration, many of them were “badly bruised and injured with blood dripping from their nose, head and arms” after being beaten and manhandled by the Chinese security men and armed police members.
Other demonstrators who joined Sonam Tenpa included: Jampa Thokmey, 30; Gelek Kunga, 26; Lobsang Tenzin, 23; Lobsang Phendey, 37; Jampa Yonten, 30; Sanggey, 29; Jampa Tsering, 28; Lobsang Wangchuk, 30; Lobsang Tashi, 21; Gendun Choephel, 30; Dargye, 37; Gedhun, 29; Jampa, 40 and Amdo Gyaltsen, 41.
All the detainees are known to be from nomadic families who have shifted their residences from different villages to Lithang Town. It could not, however, be confirmed if they belonged to those Tibetan nomadic herders who were permanently made to resettle into permanent houses under the controversial government-led relocation program engineered by Chinese Government since 2006.
According to the source, following today’s protest demonstrations in Lithang, two more groups of Tibetan people – few Tibetans close to Ronggye A’drak, who was arrested and sentenced in 2007, and few other local Tibetan residents of Lithang – were also detained by PSB and PAP forces.
The current whereabouts and their condition could not be ascertained at the moment.
Sensing more unrest, more troops are said to be deployed around Lithang following yesterday’s protest by Lobsang Lhundup.
TCHRD says it “condemns in strongest terms the Chinese security forces’ brutal use of force on the peaceful Tibetan demonstrators.” The centre, in its press statement, has called on the Chinese authorities to release all the fifteen Tibetans, who, it says, “have been arrested and detained solely for exercising their fundamental human rights.”
The statement also asks the government of the People’s Republic of China to immediately disclose the whereabouts of the detainees and to “guarantee, in all circumstances, the physical and psychological integrity of the detainees”.
The statement said: “The authorities should ensure that detainees are not subjected to further ill treatment in the detention centre as they were subjected to in broad daylight at the market square. The Centre deems the case as an outright clampdown on the freedom of opinion and expression in Tibet.”
