Report Exposes Brutality of Chinese Security Forces in Tibet[Thursday, 22 July 2010, 2:17 p.m.]
Dharamshala:
The Chinese security forces used disproportionate force and acted with
deliberate brutality during and after the unprecedented Tibetan
people’s peaceful protests across Tibet in March 2008, a US-based human
rights group said in a new report released Thursday.The Human
Rights Watch said its researchers interviewed more 200 Tibetan refugees
and visitors outside China between March 2008 and April 2010. The 73-page report – “I saw It with My Own Eyes’: Abuses by Security Forces in Tibet, 2008-2010”
– details through eyewitness testimonies a broad range of abuses
committed by Chinese security forces, which includes large-scale
arbitrary arrests, brutalising detainees, and torturing alleged
suspects in custody.The report said Chinese security forces
opened fire indiscriminately on demonstrators in at least four separate
incidents, including in one area of downtown Lhasa on 14 March.In
the report a 24-year-old Lhasa resident testified: “They (Chinese
security forces) were firing straight at people. They were coming from
the direction of Jiangsu Lu firing at any Tibetans they saw, and many
people have been killed.”Another eyewitness, a 55-year-old
resident from Rebgong said: “The first thing I saw was a lot of
soldiers and police beating the crowd with electric batons. Groups of
four or five soldiers were arresting crowd members one by one and
putting them in a truck.” “She was shot by a single bullet in
the head. Local people managed to take her body home to the village,
which is about five kilometers from Tongkor monastery,” said Sonam
Tenzin (not his real name), a 27-year-old monk from Tongkor monastery.Rinchen
Namgyal (not his real name), a 33-year-old monk from Gaden monastery,
said: “We were beaten very badly. The guards used clubs and sticks to
beat us … They hit us mostly on the lower body. This lasted two days.
Then we were taken to Gutsa prison in Lhasa. There, the police
interrogated us non-stop for two whole days and nights. They were
beating us, taking turns to conduct the interrogation.”“The
beatings continued in the courtyard. The PAP soldiers were using belts
and the butt of their guns … They were kicking him on the ground, and
he was bleeding a lot-there was so much blood. Then they left him just
lying on the ground, motionless … I saw it with my own eyes,” said
Lhundrup Dorje (not his real name), a resident from Lhasa.Pasang
Choepel (not his real name), a former detainee from Ngaba, said: “Up to
30 people were crowded in cells of three to four square meters. There
was no space to sit down so detainees had to stand most of the day and
night. The cells had not toilets but prisoners were not taken out and
had to relieve themselves in the cell. They were given one bowl of rice
congee a day. Many were subjected to beatings.” According to
Jampa Lhaga (not his real name), a former Drepung monk in Lhasa: “They
burst in, breaking the doors and gates of the colleges and dormitories.
The soldiers were armed and equipped with hatchets and hammers, as well
as torches, handcuffs and wire ropes. On entering monks’ rooms they
would first ask for phones, which were systematically confiscated …
Some of the arrested monks were handcuffed; others tied up with wire
ropes … They ordered us to move very fast, and if we didn’t, they’d hit
us. Several hundred monks were taken away.”“Dozens of
eyewitness testimonies and the government’s own sources show clearly
the official willingness to use force against unarmed protesters. This
report decisively refutes the Chinese government’s claim that it
handled the protests in line with international standards and domestic
laws,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights
Watch.“The need for an international investigation into the
situation in Tibet is a great as ever. Abuses by security forces are
unlikely to quell, and may even aggravate, the longstanding grievances
that prompted the protests in the first place,”Richardson said.According
to information received by the Central Tibetan Administration, more
than 223 Tibetans were killed and over 1294 injured during the ruthless
crackdown by Chinese security forces. Over 4,657 were arrested or
detained and the whereabouts of 990 Tibetans remain unknown.
