Chinese authorities intimidate, discriminate and arrest family members of Tibetan suicides

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) accuses the Chinese authorities of starting a criminalization campaign against relatives and friends of Tibetan suicide victims. People who were close to Tibetans who burned themselves are being intimidated, discriminated and arrested. "Instead of trying to analyze the causes for these acts of desperation, the wave of suicides is being covered up. Not even the family’s mourning is being respected. This is inhumane," said the STP’s expert on questions regarding Asia, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Friday.

Several Tibetans were arrested or sentenced to prison for spreading information about self-immolations. Friends are not allowed to pay condolence-visits to relatives – or they are intimidated with threats that no financial assistance will be provided. The state will not grant any financial support for Villages in which Tibetans committed suicide by self-immolation. Several relatives were offered larger amounts of bribe-money for publicly asserting that the suicides were committed for family reasons. In at least one case, a husband was arrested because he refused to make fictitious statements. The authorities are also offering rewards for information about self-immolations.

Most of the self-immolations take place in eastern Tibet. There are many arrests and Buddhist monasteries are being observed continuously. According to official instructions issued on November 14, there will be a three-year suspension of financial support provided for the families of suicide victims in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Malho, northwest Qinghai Province. Communities that hold memorial services for the victims will not be granted any development projects – and state employees who condole are to be dismissed.

Dhoune, the husband of the Tibetan woman Dolkar Tso, was arrested in early November. She had committed suicide on August 7. Dhonue refused to accept the bribe and did not agree to publicly assert that his wife had killed herself due to family reasons. A larger sum was also offered as a bribe to the family of the suicide victim Sangay Gatso, trying to force them to say that the Tibetan had not killed himself for political reasons.

At least six Tibetan monks and one layman were arrested in late October for allegedly passing on information about self-immolation – among them the four monks Topden, Lobsang Choephel, Losel and Tenzin Tsundu in the prefecture Kanlho (Gansu Province) and also Tsewang, Thubten Nyandak and the layman Phurbu in Nagchu Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region. The four monks Tashi Gyatso, Kalsang Gyatso, Jigme Gyatso and Kunchok Gyatso from the monastery of Dokar (Gansu Province) were imprisoned from October 14 to 17 for taking care of a self-immolation victim and for taking pictures of the corpse. In June, the Tibetan monk Lho Younten Gyatso from Ngaba Prefecture (Sichuan Province) was sentenced to seven years in prison because he had passed on information about an act of self-immolation to Tibetan exiles.

On November 8, Chinese security officials hindered monks from the monastery Ngoshul in Ngaba Prefecture (Sichuan Province) from offering their condolences to the families of three victims of self-immolation. Not only the monastery Ngoshul, but also many other monasteries in the Tibetan areas of Ngaba prefecture and in the region Rebkong (Qinghai Province) were surrounded and searched by riot police.