HRW: China: End Crackdown on Tibetans Who Visited India

[ellisonz]

Detentions, Re-education on a Scale not Seen Since Late 1970s
February 16, 2012

(New York) – The Chinese government should immediately release Tibetans who have been detained by local police and are being forced to undergo political re-education after travelling to India to listen to religious teachings there, Human Rights Watch said today.

Many have been detained since February 6, 2012, in ad hoc detention centers in Lhasa and other areas. Multiple sources told Human Rights Watch that several hundred Tibetans may have been detained in the current sweep, but the exact number is not known. The same sources described the political re-education the detainees are subjected to. No information is available about how long the detainees will be held, but people with knowledge of the detentions in Lhasa say the detentions are expected to last from 20 days to three months.

“Arbitrarily detaining people and forcing them to undergo political indoctrination is an abuse of Chinese and international laws,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “Authorities in the region should release these individuals, as their detention only escalates the tension in Tibetan regions which already have increased limits on travel and communication as well as troop and security presence.”

This is the first known instance since the late 1970s in which the Chinese authorities have detained laypeople in Tibet in large numbers to force them to undergo re-education, Human Rights Watch said. The sweep is in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), where there has been almost no unrest in four years. It is 600 miles west of the eastern Tibetan areas in Sichuan and other provinces where there have been at least eight self-immolations and five deaths of protesters so far this year. The mass detentions in the Autonomous Region indicate that the crackdown in eastern Tibetan areas has expanded to the entire Tibetan plateau, and that it involves techniques not used in the region for several decades.

More: http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/02/16/china-end-crackdown-tibetans-who-visited-india

Meanwhile, the Vice President of the PRC Xi Jinping cavorts in California building business ties: http://news.yahoo.com/xi-jinping-california-glimpse-china-really-wants-225818074.html

This is not even in the area where there has been recent unrest. They were permitted to go and now because the rule of the PRC in Tibet is so cruel they are being punished. This is unprovoked persecution and retaliation against average Tibetans for peacefully standing up for themselves.

[ellisonz]

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