Tibet: Grim balance one year after Olympic Games in Peking

The human rights situation in Tibet has continued to deteriorate following the Olympic Games. This statement was made by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) on Wednesday at the beginning of a six-day visit to Germany by the Dalai Lama. "One year after the Olympic Games we still receive reports every week on arbitrary arrests and politically motivated court cases against Tibetans”, said the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius. It is not only monks and nuns who are victims of the attacks, but students at school and university, nomads and even government officials. The number of Buddhist monks and nuns who are being harassed by the authorities has increased to such an extent that these people are even committing suicide, although this is forbidden by Tibetan Buddhism. China’s authorities have systematically raised the pressure on Tibetans and are increasingly forbidding the reception of foreign stations. In the Chinese province of Gansu Tibetans were instructed by the authorities to dismantle their satellite dishes.

"China’s government is rejecting any credible dialogue with the Tibetan exile government of the Dalai Lama. The dialogue called for by the European Union of Peking with the Tibetans has failed miserably and had no more than an alibi function”, criticised Delius. The Chinese government rejected the "Memorandum for genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people”, which the negotiators of the Dalai Lama handed over during the eighth and last round of talks between Tibetans and the Chinese leaders on 4th November 2008. "Clearly the Chinese leaders are planning on the death of the present Dalai Lama to finally iron out and subjugate Tibet”, fears Delius.

"If China continues to maintain these ruthless minority policies and to refuse any genuine autonomy for Tibet, then new disturbances can be expected not only in Xinjiang, but also in Tibet”, warned Delius. The protest today is being borne no longer just by Buddhist monks and nuns, but by the people at large. On 28th June 2009 the 18-year old school student Lobsang Nyandak was arrested because he had protested publicly against China’s rule in Tibet. Two Tibetan school students were recently sentenced to two years imprisonment because they had in April taken down the Chinese flag on their school grounds in the town of Tsashul. Two other students were expelled from their school in the town of Sangkhok (in the province of Gansu) because they had made a public protest against the preferential treatment given to Han Chinese in the educational system.

Sixteen out of seventeen suicides registered since March 2008 were committed by nuns and monks. At no time in the past 30 years have so many nuns and monks killed themselves.

Ulrich Delius can also be reached at z.delius@gfbv.de