DHARAMSHALA: One of the world’s leading human rights organisation based in New York on Wednesday said China’s announcement to expand a pervasive new security system throughout Tibet Autonomous Region despite an already heavy security presence and little evidence of violent threats raises grave concerns about threats to human rights.
Human Rights Watch said the Chinese government announced the new security measures, known as “grid” (Tib.: drwa ba, Ch.: wangge) management, in the annual TAR work report, which was released on 7 February 2013.
On February 17, 2013, Yu Zhengsheng, Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the top official in China in charge of nationality policy, confirmed that the system should be put into effect throughout the region to form “nets in the sky and traps on the ground,” an indication that the system is primarily designed for surveillance and control, HRW said.
It said the system significantly increases surveillance and monitoring, particularly of “special groups” in the region – former prisoners and those who have returned from the exile community in India, among others.
Expansion of the grid system, alongside the construction across Tibet of over 600 “convenience police-posts” with high-tech equipment to monitor daily life, and increasingly active volunteer security groups known as “Red Armband Patrols” (Tib.: dpung rtag dmar po) in 2012, means that surveillance is now a pervasive part of life across the region, HRW said.
The system is staffed mostly by civilians rather than government officials, usually with a Communist Party member in each office, to manage surveillance and control operations. Party membership in Tibet requires articulating opposition to, among other things, increased Tibetan autonomy, independence, or the Dalai Lama, thus raising concerns that political criteria rather than violations of law may serve as the basis of surveillance, searches, or detentions, it said.
“Chinese authorities should dismantle this Orwellian ‘grid’ system, which has been imposed while the government continues to avoid addressing popular grievances,” said Sophie Richardson, HRW’s China director. “Its purpose appears to be surveillance and control, and it encroaches on Tibetans’ rights to freedom of expression, belief, and association.”
“China’s effort to impose pervasive surveillance on every street is not likely to make Tibet safer,” Richardson said. “But the increased surveillance will surely increase pressure in an already tense region, even while the Tibetan people are still waiting for Chinese attention to rampant violations of their rights.”
