Alignment of Xinjiang, Tibet security forces underline China’s lockdown policies for Tibetans and Uyghurs

January 22, 2019
There is growing evidence that military and security officials in Xinjiang (known to Uyghurs as East Turkestan) are collaborating more closely with their counterparts in the border areas of Tibet and elsewhere, reflecting the Chinese leadership’s alignment of Tibet and Xinjiang and the importance of both regions to the Chinese government in fulfilling its strategic and economic objectives.

January 22, 2019|Categories: Inside Tibet|

Tibetans ordered to prostrate to pictures of Chinese President as Tibet leaders prioritize anti-Dalai Lama stance

January 15, 2019
As the authorities in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) emphasized their “clear-cut” stance against the Dalai Lama at meetings of the Region’s Party Congress last week, news emerged from eastern Tibet that Tibetans are being told to prostrate and make offerings to pictures not of Buddhist icons, but of Xi Jinping.

China’s control state in Lhasa

CHINA'S CONTROL STATE IN LHASA: THE BLACK BOX OF TIBET’S PRISON SYSTEM

Satellite images show how China has remade Tibet’s capital as a hub of hyper-security while increasing tourism at the same time.

October 3, 2018|Categories: Major ICT Report|

Xi Jinping cements grip on power at Party Congress: new leaders revealed and their influence on Tibet policy

November 1, 2017

  • China’s 19th Party Congress came to a close last week, revealing a new leadership committee and breaking with tradition by not including a clear successor to Party Secretary and President Xi Jinping. The new configuration cements Xi Jinping’s grip on power for the next five years and potentially beyond, with Xi’s ideology approved for incorporation into the Party Constitution as ‘Xi Jinping thought’.

  • In his marathon three and a half hour work report to the Party Congress, Xi Jinping underlined his determination not to allow “to separate any part of Chinese territory from China”, a political term linked to the crushing of dissent and enforcement of compliance to Party rule.

  • Among the new figures on China’s top Politburo Standing Committee, the seven leaders who now govern China, is an official who served in a Tibetan area, Zhao Leji, and was active in the “political struggle against the Dalai Lama”, according to the state media. Another among the seven, Wang Huning, has maintained a close involvement with Tibet and is also likely to be extremely influential on policy.
November 1, 2017|Categories: ICT Reports|Tags: , |

New developments in China’s Tibet policy as Communist Party’s 19th Congress begins

October 17, 2017

  • Since Xi Jinping assumed power at the last Party Congress in 2012, there have been significant developments in China’s Tibet policy, reflecting its prominence to the Communist Party leadership as an issue that is integral to China’s territorial concerns, the future of China’s economic expansion and the legitimacy of the CCP itself.

  • China has dramatically tightened control in Tibet in advance of the 19th Party Congress in Beijing from October 18. Massed ranks of troops and special forces gathered in Lhasa and other cities in the Tibet Autonomous Region for intimidating military drills in which soldiers swore allegiance to “protecting the 19th Party Congress”. Despite the already oppressive measures in place, the leadership in Tibet has emphasized even stricter ‘rectification’ with grassroots Party organisations warned to be even more “effective battle fortresses”.

  • The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) has been closed to foreigners during the Party Congress. Tibetans have been further isolated from the outside world due to more systematic blocking of communications, creating dangers even in innocent family conversations in the buildup to the meeting in Beijing, and are being subjected to more intrusive ideological campaigns.
October 17, 2017|Categories: ICT Reports|Tags: , |

Security crackdown follows first Tibetan self-immolation in 2017

March 28, 2017

  • Security has been intensified in an area of Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi) where a 24-year old Tibetan farmer, Pema Gyaltsen, set fire to himself on March 18 near a monastery.

  • A video has emerged from another area in Kardze, Serthar (Chinese: Seda), which appears to show Tibetan pedestrians in traditional clothes being attacked and brutally beaten by police. A voice over removed from the video footage, circulated by Voice of America, reflects shock and sadness among onlookers, with one voice saying over and over again, “They are doing this for no reason at all.”

  • Tensions are high in the Serthar area, which is close to the religious institute of Larung Gar, also in Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, the Tibetan area of Kham. Images and video of more demolitions at the religious institute over the last few days are circulating on social media.
March 28, 2017|Categories: ICT Reports|Tags: , |

Tibet locked down and travellers banned during sensitive anniversary

Joint statement by The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and International Campaign for Tibet (ICT)
January 27, 2017

Tour operators have announced the closure of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to tourists again next month, coinciding with the anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising in March 1959 and the related protests across Tibet in March 2008.

ICT’s President, Matteo Mecacci said: “This lockdown, taking place in an already restrictive political climate, has been imposed every year since 2008 but must not be accepted as ‘business as usual’. Chinese tourists travel in their millions across the world but foreigners are barred from seeing Tibet for themselves because of the Chinese Party’s counter-productive hardline security measures on the plateau. Foreign countries must call on China to abide to the principle of “reciprocity” and to stop limiting foreign and independent access to Tibet. This is unjustifiable and must be condemned.”

January 27, 2017|Categories: Press Release|Tags: , , |

Inside Tibet: Rare admission of psychological impact on troops involved in counter-terror, oppressive policies

December 5, 2016

A rare admission of psychological problems among police officers involved in implementing oppressive policies in the PRC, including trauma linked to the imposition of ‘stability maintenance’ and counter-terror policies, is made in a document obtained by ICT and published by a People’s Armed Police University College.

The document, published by the Department of Military Psychology at the college in Xian earlier this year,[1] expresses alarm at the dangers of long-term trauma, debilitating fear and anxiety and combat shock that arise from the policies of ‘stability maintenance’, which has involved the dramatic expansion of the powers of military and police in both Tibet and Xinjiang backed by grass roots propaganda work and electronic surveillance. “Studies have shown that during the normal carrying out of anti-terror and stability maintenance duties, psychological problems readily arise among officers,” the paper states, adding: “There is cruelty in the anti-terror struggle.”[2]

December 5, 2016|Categories: Inside Tibet|Tags: |

Lockdown of Tibet: closure to foreigners deepens isolation

February 25, 2016

Joint statement by International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and International Campaign for Tibet (ICT)

Ahead of the March 10 anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising of 1959, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) will be closed to visitors from today until the end of March, with all foreigners being instructed to leave by February 25. FIDH and its member organisation International Campaign for Tibet codemn this annual process of sealing off Tibet from the outside world.

Authorities are said to be issuing notices to all major cities and counties that all foreign visitors must leave the region by today’s deadline.

February 25, 2016|Categories: Press Release|Tags: , |

Tightening of an invisible net: new security measures in eastern Tibet heighten surveillance, control

February 16, 2016

New systematic and long-term security measures are being rolled out in the eastern Tibetan areas of Kham and Amdo as part of an intensified control agenda set at the highest levels in Beijing and in line with a ‘counter-terror’ campaign.

“It has gone beyond a simple ‘crackdown’ now, and is much more sophisticated, and terrifying,” a Tibetan source told ICT after speaking to a number of Tibetans from different parts of Tibet. “Security is invisible and everywhere. It is no longer only armed police patrolling the streets; often we don’t know who the police are as they blend into society, and officials are in our homes, asking about every part of our lives.”

February 16, 2016|Categories: Inside Tibet|Tags: , , , |
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