Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, Apr 17, 1996

By ELAINE KURTENBACH

Associated Press Writer

BEIJING, April 16, 1996 (AP) -- Tibetan Buddhists now are enduring the worst wave of repression since martial law was imposed in the Tibetan capital in 1989, a human rights group has reported.

Chinese authorities are imposing harsh controls to prevent Tibetan Buddhism from becoming a motivation for pro-independence sentiment, the International Campaign for Tibet says.

The report was released Monday to coincide with debate on China's human rights record by the U.N. Human Rights Commission, now meeting in Geneva.

China rebuffed the report as false, saying it was based on information from people whose "main goal is to create chaos."

"Things mentioned in that report have never happened," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang told reporters today.

"The fact is that in recent years Tibet has enjoyed rapid economic growth too. What's more, religious beliefs have been protected, we have built many temples," Shen said.

The report said that China, having declared that there already are enough Buddhist temples and monks and nuns to attend to the "daily religious needs of the people," has begun restricting Tibetans from joining monasteries and nunneries and prohibiting unregistered construction of temples.

The group alleged a number of human rights violations -- all of which have been corroborated by other monitoring groups. It said monks and nuns detained by police are routinely beaten and tortured by such methods as electric shock, dousing with cold water, sleep deprivation, rape and other sexual abuse.

China sent its army into Tibet in 1950 and formally took it over a year later, claiming it was Chinese territory. Large pro-independence protests broke out in the late 1980s, until authorities imposed martial law in the capital Lhasa in 1989.

Reports of scattered protests continue, although they are difficult to confirm. Journalists rarely receive permission to visit the remote region, and officials there rarely provide information by phone.

The government encourages limited religious activity in Tibet, partly because it is a prime tourist attraction. But the report said officials fear that Buddhism posed a challenge to Chinese Communist rule there.

It also noted an official campaign to discredit the exiled Dalai Lama's position as a revered Tibetan spiritual leader.

As part of that effort, Beijing has refused to accept a 6-year-old boy the Dalai Lama named as the reincarnation of Tibetan Buddhism's highest-ranking leader inside Tibet, the Panchen Lama. Chinese officials insisted that Tibetan Buddhists enthrone another child. The Dalai Lama's choice is believed to be under house arrest, making him, the group said, perhaps the world's youngest prisoner of conscience.

The group also criticized the U.S. Department of State's annual report on human rights, which it said has erroneously indicated that Tibetans enjoy freedom of religion as long as it is not connected to pro-independence activities.