By Tenzin Dharpo
DDHARAMSHALA, July 10: The newly adopted ‘National Security Law’ by Beijing on July 1, 2015 has components that is viewed as yet another diplomatic tool to blanket the human right violations as legal practices and “will enable Chinese authorities to further justify the human rights abuses that continues to take place for Tibetans today” according to Dharamshala based non-governmental organization TCHRD (Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy).
The law itself by definition encompasses a board and inaccurate directive that could criminalize any action or statement under the purview of national threat and does not clearly mention what is actually prohibited. The law has a stance that could well be a step back in terms of basic human rights being observed in Tibet, in particular Article 27 prohibits any acknowledgement of the Dalai Lama, possession of his teachings, long life prayer for him and celebration of his birthday is perceived as going against the government.
And Article 77 allows for law enforcement agencies to impose collective punishments to the whole family for failure to provide conditions to facilitate national security initiatives and “keeping state secrets they learned are confidential” and provides jurisdictional claim to make arbitrary arrests and detention making it a lawful protocol.
The law, said TCHRD, has oddly mentioned subjects that are considered a national threat such as religious beliefs, resisting negative cultural influences, ethnic minorities, outer space, international seabeds and Polar Regions among other things.
The only right monitoring group of the Tibetan Diaspora said China’s reaction to a self immolation by a Tibetan woman named Sangyal Tso in May illustrates how these broad requirements could be used to violate human rights. “Sangyal Tso’s husband and a monk were both arrested without justification after her self-immolation. The suspicion is that the police believe that they were connected to her self-immolation. However, under the National Security Law, they could be detained for failing to prevent self-immolations, which would be considered a threat to national security.”
Speaking at a press conference, Zheng Shu’na, member of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee, described the law as a “condition in which a country’s government, sovereignty, unification, territorial integrity, well-being of its people, sustainable development of its economy and society, and other major interests are relatively safe and not subject to internal and external threats”.
The legislation was passed with 144 votes in favor out of the total 155 lawmakers at a bimonthly session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing.
