Human Rights Watch says tolerance
against peaceful protest in Tibet diminishing
Phayul July 22, 2016 Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA,
July 22: The leading rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) in their
latest report, ‘Detention and Prosecution of Tibetans under China’s
Stability Maintenance Campaign’, reported that the authorities’
tolerance towards any forms of expression and assembly have
diminished under the stability maintenance policy.
The report, which recorded Chinese detention, prosecution, and
conviction of Tibetans for peaceful activities from 2013 to 2015,
stated that there has been an increase in ‘state control over daily
life’, ‘increasing criminalization of nonviolent forms of protest’,
and ‘disproportionate responses to local protests’.
“These measures, part of a policy known as weiwen (stability
maintenance), have led authorities to expand the range of
activities and issues targeted for repression in Tibetan areas,
particularly in the countryside,” the report stated.
The analysis report is based on the assessment of 479 cases of
Tibetans either detained or tried from 2013 to 2015 for political
offences, which include political expression or criticism of
government policy. The assessment also comprises of cases as young
as 11-years old currently in prison.
The report also highlighted the shift of epicenter of detentions
from Sichuan province to Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). It also
stated that majority of those arrested and tried were community and
religious leaders, activists, writers, singers and villagers
involved in social and cultural activities.
“Almost all the protests and detentions identified in this report
occurred in small towns or rural townships and villages rather than
in cities, where most protests and detentions in prior years were
reported to have taken place. This suggests that dissent has
increased in rural Tibetan areas, where nearly 80 percent of
Tibetans live,” the rights group said in their report.
It also showed an increased presence of Chinese officials in the
rural areas of TAR since 2011 including over 21,000 officials
deployed in the villages and monasteries in the TAR region
alone.
With stability maintenance policy in its third phase in TAR, HRW
also stated that politicized detentions in Eastern Tibet (Qinghai,
Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces) has direct link with the
policy. However, it is most aimed at ‘stopping self-immolations by
Tibetans’ in these regions.
“The failure of the central government and local authorities to end
these abusive policies and roll back intrusive security and
surveillance measures raises the prospect of an intensified cycle
of repression and resistance in a region already enduring
extraordinary restrictions on basic human rights,” the report
said.