TCHRD condemns in strongest term China’s execution of four Tibetans

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has received confirmed information from reliable sources that Lobsang Gyaltsen, Loyak, Penkyi and an unnamed Tibetan were executed on Tuesday, 20 October 2009 under the supervision of the Lhasa Municipality Intermediate People’s Court for their alleged involvement in last year’s mass protest in the Tibetan capital. Further information is awaited. No information on their execution was reported anywhere in the Chinese state media.
According to sources, the dead body of Lobsang Gyaltsen, from Lubug on the outskirt of Lhasa city, was handed over to his family and his dead body was later known to have been immersed in Kyichu River.
There is no information on whether the defendants appealed their sentences to the Supreme People’s Court after Lhasa Municipal Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak to death on 8 April 2009.
According to the Chinese official mouthpiece dated 8 April 2009, Lhasa Municipal Intermediate People’s Court sentenced two people to death (Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak), two to suspended death penalties (Tenzin Phuntsok and Kangtsuk) and another (Dawa Sangpo) to life imprisonment on charges of arson causing death. The five were convicted of torching five shops in Lhasa, killing seven people, during the March 14 riot.
On 21 April 2009 the same court, according to the State media, sentenced three Tibetans (Penkyi of Nyemo County and Penkyi of Sakya County and Chime of Namling County) to suspended death, life and 10 years’ imprisonment respectively for setting fires that allegedly killed six people in Lhasa last year. The Centre is highly concerned about the fate of Tibetans who were on suspended death sentences.
 The PRC government currently sentences more people to death each year than any other nation in the world. TCHRD condemns the executions of four Tibetans and urges PRC government to show restraint and to grant its citizens fair trials and to abide by the basic human rights of all of its peoples, regardless of their ethnicity.
TCHRD remains unconditionally opposed to the use of the death penalty in all cases as a violation of the fundamental right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It should also be noted that the death penalty has never shown to have a special deterrent effect nor should state use it to justify the wrong done by the defendant. For instance in the case of two Tibetans (Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak) the state media earlier reported that both "have to be executed to assuage the people's anger.” Such eyeball for eyeball approach is in no way a justification of giving death sentence. The execution of four Tibetans  are further proof of China’s unwillingness to abide by the United Nations Global Moratorium on the Death Penalty, adopted in 2007, which establishes a suspension on executions with the view to abolish the death penalty.
TCHRD expresses strongest condemnation and grief over the shocking executions. The Centre also expresses serious concern over the fate of other Tibetans with suspended death sentences. Toward this end, the Centre seeks immediate and urgent intervention by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra Judicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Execution, governments and the international community over this unlawful execution. 

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Sun*Star - Pampanga: Free Tibet

By Malu Gueco

FLYING prayer flags sweep across the rooftop of our world in this land of mystery -- Tibet. Famous for their Tibetan Buddhism, renowned for centuries old lamaseries and/or monasteries and distinctive for their spirituality, their people are said to be among the gentle persons on earth. Henceforth, a question you and I might raise is the location of this sacred place.

Where is Tibet? Research in the cyberspace reveals the following: Tibet lies at the center of Asia, with an area of 2.5 million square kilometers. The earth's highest mountains, a vast arid plateau and great river valleys make up the physical homeland of six million Tibetans. It has an average altitude of 13,000 feet above sea level. Tibet is comprised of the three provinces of Amdo (now split by China into the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan), Kham (largely incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai), and U-Tsang (which, together with western Kham, is today referred to by China as the Tibet Autonomous Region). The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) comprises less than half of historic Tibet and was created by China in 1965 for administrative reasons. It is important to note that when Chinese officials and publications use the term "Tibet" they mean only the TAR. Tibetans use the term Tibet to mean the three provinces described above, i.e., the area traditionally known as Tibet before the 1949-50 invasion. Despite over 40 years of Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Tibetan people refuse to be conquered and subjugated by China.

The present Chinese policy, a combination of demographic and economic manipulation, and discrimination, aims to suppress the Tibetan issue by changing the very character and the identity of Tibet and its people. Today, Tibetans are outnumbered by Han Chinese population in their own homeland. 2008 The brutality of the Red Chinese subjugation had smashed the homes and hearth of many Tibetans; despite this repression, their spirits blaze across the world. Wherever they might be found, they only raise this line.

Free Tibet... Free Tibet... Free Tibet.

Update Herein is the latest story filed on their dissent: "Tibetan unrest began with demonstrations on March 10, 2008 (Tibetan Uprising Day), the 49th anniversary of the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Beijing's rule. The protests and subsequent riots began when 300 monks demanded the release of other monks detained since last fall, but soon after, political demands surfaced and the protest turned violent. [1] Tibetans attacked non-Tibetan ethnic groups. Rioting, burning and looting began on March 14. [2] Information is scarce because Chinese authorities have restricted the ability of foreign and Hong Kong media to enter and freely report on the region, [11] with the exception of James Miles, a correspondent from The Economist, who gained approval for a weeklong trip, which happened to coincide with the increase in tensions. [12] On March 27, following a promise by premier Wen Jiabao to allow the media back in as soon as practicable, the Chinese authorities organized a controlled tour of Lhasa by foreign media. [13] Chinese authorities have also reportedly attempted to block access to several major internet media outlets by Chinese citizens during the turmoil."

Finale I protest against the Chinese domination over Tibet. Enough of torture, killings and imprisonment of Tibetan monks/nuns/citizens. Together with human rights advocates, I call for the restoration of their freedom. Fly high snow lions printed on your Tibetan flag...Fight on for your rights...Free Tibet forever

Below is a statement by the Kashag, Tibet's Gov't-in-Exile body based in Northern India....

China's Serf Emancipation Day Hides Repression in Tibet

China’s decision to observe tomorrow as the so-called Serf Emancipation Day is aggravating problems in Tibet. Tibetans consider this observance offensive and provocative. We believe the observance of the "Serf Emancipation Day" on 28 March is aimed at destabilising and creating chaos in Tibet by a few individuals with overriding self-interest. If the Tibetans, losing their patience, took to the streets in protest, the Chinese leaders will have the excuse to use even more brutal force to crackdown.

Already the whole of Tibet is under heavy security clampdown, with additional troops deployed. Despite these measures, Tibetans, considering conditions in Tibet unbearable, collectively and individually, are taking to the streets, distributing pamphlets calling for freedom, bringing down the Chinese flag and replacing it with the Tibetan flag. This year, Tibetans did not celebrate the Tibetan New Year to mourn those killed in last year’s crackdown on the widespread protests that erupted throughout Tibet. In a development unprecedented in the history of Tibet, Tibetans in Kanze in eastern Tibet have decided not to farm their fields in a unique form of civil disobedience to protest China’s heavy-handed rule. One monk, Tashi Sangpo of Ragya monastery in Golok in north-eastern Tibet was arrested on 10 March 2009, for allegedly hoisting a Tibetan flag. He escaped his captors and drowned himself in the nearby Yellow River. These acts and many more are the true Tibetan attitude to “emancipation” by China.

This day will be observed by Tibetans throughout the world and especially those in Tibet as a day of mourning. No less a figure than Hu Yaobang, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, who visited Lhasa in 1980, apologized to the Tibetan people and said the conditions in Tibet were worse than pre-1959 Tibet.

The late Panchen Lama said in 1989, a few days before his untimely death, that on the whole China’s rule in Tibet brought greater suffering than benefit for the Tibetan people.

Since 1949/50 when China invaded Tibet, over 1.2 million Tibetans died as a direct result of Chinese communist rule and more than 6,000 monasteries were razed to the ground. Today, it is hard to come across a Tibetan family that has not had at least one member imprisoned or killed by the Chinese regime. This day will be observed as the day when the Tibetans as a people lost all vestiges of their basic individual and collective freedoms.

One justification for China’s "liberation" of Tibet is that old Tibet was feudal and repressive. This is a blatant distortion of the nature of Tibet’s old society. In the early mid-20th century, there was no big gap between the peasants in Tibet and China. Moreover, the Tibetan peasants enjoyed more freedom and better living conditions.

To prove that the old Tibetan society was repressive, the Chinese authorities are currently organising an exhibition of Tibetan prisons and the punishments meted out. However, the reality is that the size of Nangze Shar Prison in Lhasa, heavily used in Chinese propaganda, could accommodate not more than a score of prisoners. In fact, the total number of prisoners in the whole of Tibet before 1959 hardly crossed hundred. After the so-called liberation and emancipation of the Tibetan “serfs”, prisons have come up in every part of Tibet. In Lhasa alone, there are 5 major prisons with a total prison population between 3,500 - 4,000.

The best judge of whether they have been ‘liberated” is the Tibetan people. They vote with their feet and lives by crossing the Himalayas to seek freedom and happiness outside of their “liberated” Tibet. They also sacrifice their lives to inform the world of the terrible conditions prevailing in Tibet. This was massively demonstrated last year when a series of sustained and widespread protests erupted throughout Tibet. If the ‘serfs” are happy with their “emancipation”, why are they risking lives and limbs to protest Chinese rule in Tibet.

The Kashag, 27 March 2009  www.tibet.net