Dharamsala (AsiaNews) – I saw with my own eyes is a 73-page report by Chinese journalists based on more than 200 interviews with Tibetan refugees and visitors conducted immediately after they left China, as well as fresh, not previously reported, official Chinese sources. It details, through eyewitness accounts, a broad range of abuses committed by security forces both during and after protest incidents in March 2008, including the use of disproportionate force in breaking up protests, large-scale arbitrary arrests and torture of suspects in custody.
Urgen Tenzin, executive director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), spoke to AsiaNews about the report, saying that it confirms existing claims and allegations about China’s violent crackdown of March 2008.
The report “shows that Tibetans are not engaged in propaganda” when they complain about violence and abuses, that “Chinese authorities in occupied Tibet unleashed a series of campaigns” and enforced “regulations and decrees to subject Tibetans to intensified state controls in order to suppress their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
“Now this document, I saw with my own eyes, authored by some Han Chinese journalists and lawyers, has recorded the brutality unleashed on innocent Tibetan people, confirming our own reports,” Tenzin said.
“Chinese authorities routinely resort to arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and torture in dealing with peaceful protests by Tibetans. Repression fell on Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries and peaceful protests by Tibetan people were repressed with a heavy hand.”
“Even now Tibetans live in fear. Currently in Lhasa, scores of Chinese military in plainclothes are closely monitoring the movements of people, including foreigners.”
“The situation in Lhasa is very tense and some journalists who were allowed in are relating the sad state of affairs. Despite the small number of media people such reports, the facts are emerging. So, imagine that free media had full access to Tibet, then the full extent and gravity of the violations and repressive measures carried out indiscriminately inside Tibet would emerge.”
“Chinese officials in Tibet enforce orders given by their superiors. If the Chinese government does not change its stance vis-à-vis human rights and democracy, these violations will continue, or even intensify. Sadly, repressive measures are not used against Tibetans alone, but also against the people of China.”
“It is a sad reflection of today’s state of affairs that sections of the world live without human rights, in fear and intimidation, under the repression of their own rulers.”
“The United Nations Human Rights Commission should take a serious look at the violations carried out by Beijing in Tibet and in China. The UN cannot remain a mute spectator. It must pursue the Chinese government in order to get unlimited access to all areas in Tibet and China so that it can get firsthand account of what happens when there are protests, and see how volatile the situation is. Now the Chinese are targeting the intellectuals, artists, writers and other leading Tibetans.”
(Nirmala Carvalho contributed to the article)
