Self immolation could soon be a
crime in Tibet
August 24, 2016 The Indian Express
Over 125
Tibetans, including several monks, committed self immolation in the
last few years demanding the return of the Dalai Lama from
exile.
China plans
to include self immolation protests in Tibet in separatism-related
crimes, officials said even as they refuted reports that monks are
being forced to learn legal texts that highlight such
offences.
“Self-immolation is likely to be included in the book (compiled
by judicial authorities) since it endangers public security and
violates the law,” state-run Global Times quoted Qiu Ning, the
former head of Aba county’s united front work department as
saying.
Inclusion
of self-immolation in the book will make the protests a
separatism-related crime. “Cases involving illegally sending
separatism-themed pictures and videos to foreign hostile forces via
mobile messaging app WeChat are also a possible topic for the
book,” Qiu said.
Over 125
Tibetans, including several monks, committed self immolation in the
last few years demanding the return of the Dalai Lama from exile.
Officials in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in
Southwest China’s Sichuan Province also refuted reports, forcing
Buddhist monks to learn legal texts highlighting separatism-related
crimes.
Zeli
Danzhu, head of the justice bureau in the prefecture’s Aba county,
and Tashi, the deputy head of the county’s publicity department,
told Global Times that “the judicial authorities were working on
compiling Yi’an shuofa (case-based law learning) in
July”.
“But
it is unclear if the books have been issued to locals,” Qiu Ning,
the former head of Aba county’s united front work department told
the daily. According to a report by US-based Chinese-language news
website, officials in the prefecture handed out Tibetan and Chinese
books outlining law-violating cases at Kirti Gompa, or Gerdeng
Monastery, beginning in late July.
Kirti Gompa
is the site of the most self-immolation incidents on record,
incidents that have been proven to have close links with the Dalai
Lama’s faction, according to China’s official white paper on Tibet.
Chinese public security organs’ investigating claim that the
self-immolation incidents clearly showed that they are being
manipulated and instigated by the highest level of the Dalai Lama
group.
Qiu denied
that the book’s target readers are only monks and nuns, though the
book was also distributed to some 40 other monasteries in the
county. Both Qiu and Tashi also dismissed claim that authorities
“forced monks to study the book”.
According
to the white paper, the Dalai Lama group instigates
self-immolations in part through a so-called press liaison group
based in Sichuan’s Kirti Gompa and the Kirti Monastery in India and
by using the Internet and “Tibetan independence” media to hype up
self-immolation, the Global Times report said.