Human Rights in Tibet at a glance

1. Political protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet and detention of Tibetans is both increasing and spreading throughout Tibet.

2. In 1999, the Eleventh Panchen Lama entered a fourth year of incommunicado detention by the Chinese Government. China continues to refuse international observers the access necessary to confirm his well-being. China also refuses to respond adequately to the representations made on the whereabouts of the child by several thematic mechanisms of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Panchen Lama will be 11 years old on 25 April, 2000.

3. Agya Rinpoche, former abbot of Kumbum monastery in Qinghai province (north-eastern Tibet), a senior Tibetan religious figure, and an official at the deputy minister level, left China in November 1998 due to differences with the Chinese authorities... including, a heightened role demanded of him by the Government in its campaign to legitimise Gyaltsen Norbu. (the Pretender Panchen Lama).

4. In December 1999, the 14-year old XVIIth Gyalwa Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorjee, a prominent religious figure, fled Tibet secretly and reached Dharamsala, India on 5 January 2000. On 19 February he gave his strongest and most political speech since arriving in India at a ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the enthronement of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He said: "In some regions and places, due to the lack of freedom to enjoy the right to individual freedoms and the lack of knowledge and understanding, conflicts occur. To take the case of our own country, Tibet, the Land of Snows, it used to be a land where the sacred [Buddhist] faith and all aspects of intellectual and literary culture flourished. Over the last 20 to 30 years, Tibet suffered a great loss whereby Tibetan religious traditions and culture are now facing the risk of total extinction."

5. More than 11,000 monks and nuns were expelled since 1996 for opposing "patriotic re-education" sessions conducted at monasteries and nunneries under the "Strike Hard" campaign.

6. In 1999, there were 615 known political prisoners in Tibet, including 156 women according to the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy based in Dharamsala, India. 79% of the political prisoner were monks or nuns. In 1999, 130 Tibetans are known to have been arrested on the suspicious of political activities.

7. Without justification, the Chinese Government arrested and sentenced Ngawang Choephel, a Tibetan ethnomusicologist in 1996 to 18 years in prison on charges of espionage. The Chinese Government has admitted that Ngawang Choephel has developed symptoms of bronchitis, pulmonary infection, and hepatitis. In May 1999, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the UN Commission on Human Rights, in a decision categorised his detention as "arbitrary" being in contravention with international human rights standards. Since 1996 China has refused the numerous request for a visa by his mother to visit him in prison.

8. Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan nun first imprisoned at age 13, has been beaten badly on several occasion because of repeated participation in protests at Drapchi prison. Her sentence was extended for a third time in late 1998 to a total of 21 years for her involvement in demonstrations, most recently during May 1998.

9. Female political prisoners in Tibet - since 1987, have died at a rate of one in 22 while in prison-as a result of torture, beatings or other harsh treatment.

10. Since the 1988 ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture by China, a recorded 69 Tibetans have died as direct result of torture at Chinese prisons in Tibet. Six of these deaths occurred in 1999. At least 70 torture-survivors from Tibet are being cared under the Tibetan Torture Survivors Programme of the Tibetan Government in Exile in Dharamsala, India. (more) Despite claims made by the Chinese authorities of economic development and "earth-shaking progress" in Tibet, indications are that this ëdevelopmentí has been mainly for the benefit of the Chinese settlers. According to UN Development Programme data, Tibet places somewhere between 131 and 153 out of the 160 countries on the Human Development Index.

11. Repressive and unequal taxation system are further exacerbating the conditions of poverty for Tibetans in rural areas. Most of the basic rights associated with a ëwelfare stateí like the right to housing, education, health remain unfulfilled.

12. An orphanage with more than 60 Tibetan children in Lhasa was closed by the Chinese authorities in August 1999. The children, ranging in age from 1 to 14 years, reportedly either were returned to their home, turned out into the streets, or placed in a local orphanage where conditions were reportedly extremely poor. The whereabouts of Bangri Tsamtrul Rinpoche, the director of the school after detention is not known. Police reportedly found some documents and items deemed political by the Chinese authorities when they searched Bangri Tsamtrul Rinpocheís house.

13. According to official Chinese Government statistics, the 1998 illiteracy rate for Tibetans age 15 and over was approximately 60 percent, and in some areas was considerably higher. Chinese authorities over the past few years have downgraded the use of Tibetan in education and in 1997 announced that they would begin teaching Chinese to Tibetan children starting in the first grade.

14. China intensified its birth-control programmes in Tibet. For example, the authorities in Kandze (Ganzi in Chinese) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan, have proposed changes to their existing family planning policies to "reduce the number of children allowed to Tibetans". The proposal call for a reduction in the numbers of children that Tibetan workers and urban residents in the prefecture can have from two to one and from three to two for farmers and herders. There are also reports that "reduced child quotas" are also being imposed on Tibetans in some areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Gansu and Qinghai provinces, which comprise part of the Tibetan area of Amdo. Reductions in the number of children permitted would enable the local authorities to collect extra revenue from Tibetans in the form of penalties and fines for "excess" children.

15. China continues to encourage population transfer of Chinese settlers into Tibet. Tibetans are already an insignificant numerical minority in their own homeland. The demographic manipulation of Tibet is the greatest threat to the survival of the religious, cultural and national identity of Tibetans.

16. Unemployment is high amongst Tibetans while prostitution is flourishing in Tibetan towns and cities without official scrutiny. In Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, at least 658 brothels were identified by one study released in 1999.

17. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 2,903 Tibetans, including more than 1,000 children fled to exile in 1999. An estimated 300 arrived in January, 2000 at the Tibetan Refugee Reception Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal.

18. Foreign human rights delegations invited by China to Tibet are denied independent access to meet with Tibetans. China refuses allow independent human rights organisations to investigate the human rights situation in Tibet.

TIBET BUREAU

10 place de la Navigation

1201 GENEVA

Switzerland

Tel: 738 7940

Fax: 738 7941