Before the Senate Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs

September 7, 1995

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, Human Rights Watch/Asia welcomes this opportunity to discuss worsening human rights abuses in Tibet. An all-out campaign by the Chinese government against supporters of the Dalai Lama, the preeminent leader of Tibetan Buddhism, is raising enormous tensions and making the need for a peaceful resolution ever more urgent. The Chinese government continues to arrest and imprison political and religious dissenters, among them children, to torture or maltreat prisoners sometimes to the point of death or permanent disability, and to stifle free speech and smother religious practice and education. These abuses have intensified as China pursues a hard line on the issue of Tibetan autonomy and implements security measures in concert with the thirtieth anniversary of its proclamation of the Tibetan Autonomous Region on September 1, 1995. While Human Rights Watch takes no position on the issue of Tibet's status, we maintain that the rights of those who peacefully advocate autono

my or independence must be fully respected under international law.

Outside scrutiny is critical to exposing and curtailing severe abuses. We welcome the visit of the Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance to Tibet last year. This visit, however, was conducted in an atmosphere of intimidation by Chinese authorities, who used the invitation to the rapporteur as part of a broader effort to deflect international support for a condemnatory resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Commission early this year. It is crucial to keep the expanding abuses in Tibet high on the agenda of the international community. Expanding access to Tibet and the monitoring of human rights should be urgent priorities of U.S. policy towards China, and the U.S. should vigorously enlist allies such as Japan as well as international organizations to intensify their engagement on these issues.

Repression of Religious Practice and Free Expression

Since 1994, China has renewed an exceptionally harsh line against religion in an attempt to quash support for the independence movement. On July 29, 1995, the head of the Communist Party for the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Chen Kui Yuan, declared that the government "must, in accordance with the laws, regulations and policies, manage and supervise religious affairs." Those policies, he explained, included to "deepen the exposure and denunciation of the Dalai clique," to "forbid the Dalai to use monasteries as strongholds for conducting splittist activities," to "block and crack down on the possession, distribution and sale of reactionary propaganda materials, and mete out punishment according to the law to violators," to "consolidate monasteries" with "splittist" tendencies, and to halt "disorderly construction" of temples and "recruitment of lamas."

The effects of these policies have already been felt in Tibet for a year. Central Tibet (the area now comprising the Tibetan Autonomous Region) in 1959 had approximately 2,700 monasteries and 115,600 monks, nuns and lamas. By 1978 only eight monasteries and 970 monks remained; about 1,600 or half the monasteries have since been rebuilt, but there is now a ban on unauthorized restoration of more monasteries. Monasteries are still the primary means for young people to obtain a traditional Tibetan education, but this, too, is a subject of government attack. In the same speech, Chen Kui Yuan declared that "the Dalai and his associates have long competed with us to dominate the educational front and to win over the younger generation in Tibet." Compulsory political indoctrination is conducted not only in state-sponsored schools, but in monasteries and nunneries as well, and monks and nuns have been expelled or arrested for missing sessions. The education of young Tibetans in India was outlawed beginning this year

, and the admission of monks and nuns under the age of eighteen is forbidden as well. There are increasing reports that it is now official policy to prevent the admission of any new monks and nuns, regardless of age.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, Mr. Abdelfattah Amor, visited Lhasa from November 25 to 27, 1994, the first such visit to Tibet by a U.N. rapporteur. China took extraordinary precautions designed to strictly control access to the delegation. The authorities maintained strict secrecy as to the delegation's hotel and movements in Lhasa, banned monks and nuns from around the Jokhang Temple and the Barkor square, flew military helicopters low over these areas, and surrounded the visitors with plainclothes police. Ten days after the visit, fourteen monks from the Sang-ngag-Khar monastery were arrested when they held a protest over political interference with religious affairs; they had earlier tried unsuccessfully to contact the Special Rapporteur.

Nevertheless, Tibetans did manage to send over twenty five petitions to the Special Rapporteur out of the country. These petitions paint a detailed picture of the restrictions alluded to by Chen Kui Yuan. Ordinary people are banned from possessing even pictures of the Dalai Lama. Not only Communist Party members, but all state employees are banned from engaging in religious activities or possessing personal religious objects such as alters, prayer wheels, or incense hearths. Strict limits or bans on the admission of new monks and nuns to monasteries are in place, and reconstruction of monasteries destroyed during the Cultural Revolution is forbidden. These abuses have been confirmed by other visitors, who report that officials from the Religious Affairs Bureau have threatened to close monasteries and nunneries unless they agree to imposed limits on the numbers of monks and nuns, to bar monks and nuns who have completed prison terms from returning, and to pledge in writing not to encourage independence activi

ties or support the Dalai Lama. These restrictions are in addition to the pervasive control China exerts with respect to the appointment of monastic leaders, surveillance within religious communities, and control over the movement of monks and nuns. In the words of party boss Chen Kui Yuan, "Temples must exercise effective control over their monks and assume responsibility for the society and the nation. Temples should clearly check monks and nuns who violate the laws and cause trouble, as well as take strict measures to control them."

The expression of pro-independence sentiments receives harsh punishment, even when those who speak are already imprisoned. At a trial on October 8, 1993, fourteen Buddhist nuns in Drapchi Prison in Lhasa had their sentences increased by as much as nine years for composing and recording songs and poems praising the Dalai Lama and independence while imprisoned. A copy of their tape, recorded in June 1993 on a recorder smuggled into the prison, reached the outside world. The nuns were convicted of "spreading counterrevolutionary propaganda." In another case, Yeshe Ngawang, a twenty-eight-year old monk, was arrested in 1989 and sentenced to five years for participating in a pro-independence demonstration. In April 1991, he was badly beaten and placed in solitary confinement for six weeks after protesting the beatings and transfer of five other prisoners who tried to hand a letter to visiting U.S. Ambassador James Lilley. Later that year he was tortured severely when guards caught him trying to pass a letter to h

is relatives during a prison visit. As a consequence, his sentence was extended by nine years.

Political Arrests

Political detentions rose markedly in 1995, with more known cases taking place between January and April than in all of the previous year, for a total of 168 so far. At least twenty major pro-independence demonstrations are known to have taken place this year, sixteen of them in February and March alone, during which fifty-six nuns and fifty monks were arrested in Lhasa and Phenpo. In addition, ninety monks, including senior monastic officials and religious teachers, were expelled from their monasteries. These arrests have swelled the ranks of the literally hundreds of political prisoners. According to our most recent records, we have reports of at least 725 persons detained for political reasons, of whom almost half are women. Sixty-one of these prisoners were children at the time of their detention. These numbers should be taken as only suggestive of the problem, as China does not release any names or statistics on those detained, and information often takes years to come out.

In one case, Chinese police raided the Nalanda monastery in Phenpo Lhundrup county in the last week of February 1995, after arresting a Nalanda monk called Thongmon in a nearby town because he was wearing a pro-independence badge. Monks at Nalanda protested, and a second raid by a contingent of the People's Armed Police ensued. All told, forty monks were arrested, the largest sweep from a single monastery in recent years. These prisoners were transferred to Sangyip prison in Lhasa in March. There are reports that the senior monks at Nalanda had been preparing to carry out a pro-independence demonstration in March, and that their preparations were discovered in a search of the monastery, broadcast on television. Following the raid, a political reeducation "work team" was sent to this monastery and other monasteries and nunneries in Phenpo Lhundrup, and all visits by outsiders to Nalanda were prohibited. The "work team" ultimately expelled sixty four of Nalanda's 140 registered monks, the largest known expulsi

on of monks to have taken place since 1987.

Torture and Prison Conditions

Torture is defined in international law as the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, by officials for the purpose of interrogation, punishment or discrimination. Its practice is rife in China, and especially prevalent against dissidents in China's prisons and detention centers in Tibet. Severe beatings and use of electric batons are common, as are handcuffing, shackling, deprivation of food and drink and denial of medical treatment.

In view of the U.N. conference being held in Beijing on the rights of women, one must emphasize that Tibetan nuns have faced especially harsh abuse during interrogation. An example is Phuntsog Nyidron, a twenty-six-year old nun. She was arrested with five other nuns after they began a brief, peaceful demonstration on October 14, 1989, a few days after they heard the news that the Dalai Lama had received the Nobel Peace Prize. One of the nuns arrested with her later escaped and reported that officials kicked and beat the women during the arrest, and later subjected them to electric shocks on the hands, shoulder, breasts, tongue and face. During interrogations, the nuns were each suspended from the ceiling by their handcuffed hands, and beaten with an iron rod. Phuntsog Nyidron was one of the fourteen nuns found guilty of singing hymns and independence songs into a tape recorder. At the October 1993 trial, she was given an additional eight-year term, increasing her total sentence to seventeen years.

New methods of torture were reported in Lhasa's prisons by Tibetans this year. One is the exposure of prisoners to extremes of temperature, a practice that is terribly debilitating but leaves no visible signs of abuse. In one reported case, a suspect was pinned down and exposed to extreme heat for sixteen hours and then placed over-night in a cold room with barely any clothing. This treatment was repeated for three days. Another practice was the treatment of imprisoned Tibetan nuns as "soldiers" who are given special "physical training" sessions which involve brutal beatings.

Tibetans deported by the Nepali authorities have frequently been imprisoned and treated abusively by the authorities upon their return. According to one nineteen-year-old youth from Damshung in northern Tibet, interrogators at the border in Dram administered electric shocks to his face and chest, kicked him in the kidneys until he couldn't breath, beat his face with their fists, and made him and his companions stand barefoot in the snow. Some deportees have been sent to Lhasa for further interrogation, where they were also subjected to beatings and electric shocks.

Conditions of imprisonment continue to be appalling, contributing to the physical break-down of those detained. The effects of torture are exacerbated by a lack of medical care and adequate nutrition, as well as the imposition of hard labor on prisoners who are physically weak.

Deaths of Political Prisoners

At least a dozen Tibetan political prisoners have died in custody or shortly after release since 1987, from maltreatment and torture inflicted in prison and lack of adequate medical treatment. Five of these have been women. Yet other former political prisoners have died months or years after their release from chronic or incurable medical conditions relating to torture.

Tibet's youngest political prisoner, Sherab Ngawang, died just after her release in February of this year. This novice at the Michungri nunnery was a twelve-year-old girl at the time of her arrest in 1992. She, four other nuns and one monk began a brief protest in the Barkor Square in Lhasa on the morning of February 3, 1992, just as the governor of the Tibetan Autonomous Region and sixteen other high officials were about to visit the Barkor police station. The protest lasted only a few minutes before police seized them. According to reports, prison guards beat her severely during her incarceration, using electric batons and plastic tubes filled with sand. A particularly severe assault took place after she made a face at guards when they were closing the doors one evening. Upon her release, she was taken to several different hospitals in Lhasa where she was diagnosed as having malfunction of the kidneys and lungs, a diagnosis confirmed by later reports that her kidneys showed signs of acute damage and adhesi

ons were found on her lungs.

Gyaltsen Kelsang, a twenty-four-year-old nun who had served eighteen months of a two-year sentence died at her home on February 20, 1995. She had been arrested with eleven other Garu nuns who were preparing to take part in an independence demonstration on June 14, 1993. Chinese authorities had allowed the nun to return to her home for medical reasons, but she was technically still in custody and due to return to Drapchi Prison in Lhasa. It is known that she had been severely beaten there, denied help, and put to work doing hard labor. In November 1994, after she had been transferred to the Police Hospital in Lhasa, she was diagnosed as having kidney problems and had lost use of and sensation in her lower limbs. She may also have suffered a chronic pulmonary condition associated with poor living conditions and malnourishment. Gyaltsen Kelsang was in good health when she went to prison.

Phuntsog Yangkyi , a twenty-year-old nun from the Michungri nunnery, died on June 4, 1994, ten days after being transferred from Drapchi prison to a Lhasa hospital with a brain injury. She had been serving a five-year prison term, and the fatal injury allegedly resulted when prison guards punished her and other nuns for singing as part of their impromptu celebration of Losar, the new year festival. Chinese authorities also denied allegations of torture, claiming that Phuntsog Yangkyi died of "cerebral tuberculosis." Medical sources have informed us that such a condition should not prove fatal where adequate medical treatment is available.

Each of these and other deaths in custody should be the subject of a thorough and impartial investigation. Those responsible for deaths due to torture or maltreatment should be prosecuted.

Recommendations for U.S. Policy:

1) The Administration is preparing for a possible summit meeting in the U.S. in October between President Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Congress should insist that no such meeting take place until and unless the Chinese government takes significant steps to reverse the deterioration of human rights conditions in China and Tibet. Some such steps would include:

the opening Tibet to international human rights monitors; - the revocation of laws used to punish peaceful pro-independence advocates and political and religious dissidents;

the unconditional release of such persons; or - the abolition of controls over religious practices and religious communities and alleged "splittist activities" that are fully protected by universal human rights guarantees.

2) When a new U.S. ambassador to China is confirmed and dispatched to Beijing, human rights abuses in Tibet should be high on his agenda The new ambassador should step up monitoring of human rights conditions in Tibet by the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. A minimum of two diplomats who are fluent in Tibetan should be charged with monitoring human rights conditions. The ambassador should encourage Congressional delegations to Beijing to raise the cases of imprisoned Tibetans with central government authorities.

3) The U.S. should press Chinese authorities to allow unrestricted access to Tibet by international human rights monitoring organizations, foreign press, and UN human rights rapporteurs and working groups. Access must include areas beyond Lhasa and be free and unhindered by Chinese officials.

4) The U.S. and other countries with diplomatic representatives in China should monitor reports of torture in prisons and detention centers in Tibet, and cumulate data on those who are alleged to be responsible. This information should be made public and presented to the Chinese authorities for action.

5) The U.S. should work with other governments to increase international scrutiny of human rights abuses in Tibet. For example, it should explore developing a joint strategy with the European Union and with Japan China's leading bilateral aid donor to press Beijing for increased access to Tibet.