Photo: RFA
Chinese authorities in Tibet are ordering Tibetan residents to turn over the names and other personal information of relatives living in exile communities outside Tibet, threatening loss of state benefits such as land and housing for noncompliance, Tibetan sources say.
Launched in Dingri county in the Tibet Autonomous Region’s (TAR) Shigatse prefecture in April, the campaign quickly broke its promises to Tibetan villagers who provided the required information, a source living in the region told RFA’s Tibet Service.
“Families who agreed to provide the details of their relatives living abroad were interrogated again when Chinese authorities showed up after 15 days and confiscated their mobile phones,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Photo from Tibet
A Tibetan father of six died under unclear circumstances after his release from a course of political reeducation in detention Tibet’s Nagchu prefecture two years ago, RFA has learned.
Norsang, aged around 35 and a resident of Geso village in Nagchu’s (Chinese, Naqu) Tsalhi town, had been ordered by Chinese authorities to attend the course, A Tibetan living in India said, citing local sources.
“Norsang and a few other Tibetans from the same town were sent to the political reeducation class in September 2019,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The rest of them were released, but Norsang’s whereabouts remained unknown for a long time,” the source said. “But we recently learned that he died in 2019 after being severely tortured by authorities.”
Photo: RFA
The arrest in recent months of at least seven Tibetans apparently on charges of anti-state activity underscores Beijing’s continuing drive to destroy the influence of men and women whose views of life in Tibetan regions of China go against official narratives, a Tibetan rights group in India says.
“If these intellectuals can no longer influence the Tibetan public, that public can be more easily manipulated and fooled,” says Pema Gyal, a researcher at the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.
Beginning in 2008 when widespread protests against Chinese rule swept Tibetan regions and until 2010, nearly 60 influential Tibetan poets, writers, and other literary figures and academics were arrested by Chinese police, with the whereabouts of many still unknown, Gyal said.
March 12, 2021 Share
Eight years after he was jailed for sharing news about protests in Tibet, Kunchok Jinpa died in a Lhasa hospital.
Jinpa, who in 2013 was sentenced to 21 years in prison for “leaking state secrets,” had been transferred to a hospital without his family’s knowledge. The 51-year-old suffered a brain hemorrhage and was paralyzed, rights groups said.
His experience sheds light on the dangers for Tibetans who share news about the region with outside sources.
Governed by China as an autonomous region, Tibet is one of the least-free territories in the world, with Tibetans risking arrest for petitioning authorities, sharing images about the Dalai Lama on social media, or exposing corruption by local officials, according to the U.S.-based rights group Freedom House.
Kunchok Jinpa, who lived for almost 10 years in India before returning to Tibet, is the latest in a string of cases of Tibetans dying at home or in hospitals after suffering torture in Chinese prisons.