TWA president attends the 41st session of the UN Committee against Torture
November 6, 2008
The forty-first session of United Nations Committee against Torture is of paramount importance and of political significance to the Tibetan Human Rights advocators since China readies to submit its Fourth Periodic Report.
November 6, 2008: Geneva; Tibetan Women's Association, along with International Campaign for Tibet, Free Tibet Campaign, Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy Tibetan UN Advocacy, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, Society for Threatened Peoples, Asian Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Network made a briefing to the CAT experts and submitted a joint report. Tibetan political prisoners Phuntsok Nyidron and Tanak Jigmey Sangpo gave their testimonies on torture. TWA president made a wide distribution of TWA’s report on Torture and ‘Tibet; a case for Policy Review’.
Joint Statement made by the eight Non Governmental Organizations present at the 41st session of the UN Committee against Torture
Mr. Chairperson and Distinguished Members of the Committee,
While welcoming this opportunity to present this Joint Statement before the Committee Against Torture (CAT), we focus on China's response to the List of Issues (CAT/C/CHN/4) with regard to the urgent human rights situation in Tibetan areas of the present-day People's Republic of China. Our assessment is that China failed to respond adequately to the pertinent questions of the Committee as it relates to the human rights of the Tibetan people.
On the denial of massive number of arbitrary detentions of Tibetans since 10 March, the U.S. Congressional Executive Committee on China stated that the Chinese authorities confirmed the arrest of more than 4,434 Tibetans, including those who "surrendered". According to this analysis the fate of over 1,249 Tibetans remained unknown as of June 2008. Furthermore, various reports stated that Tibetans detained in the "TAR" were transported to different locations, including around 300 prisoners arriving at the train station in Xining, Qinghai Province, in early April. Tibetan sources said: "Every prisoner seemed to be hurt badly and some had blood on their faces. There was an old lady in the group with heavy shackles on her feet, and no shoes. She was being beaten by the police." Other reliable reports reveal that a large number of Tibetan detainees were taken from Lhasa to detention facilities in Sichuan and Qinghai provinces, either by train or by road. A young monk who was detained in Lhasa for having no identity card was taken to a local detention center and beaten severely every day over a period of several days, according to one report. "Four men beat him at the same time, each time," one source reported.
"During the torture, he had no comprehension of night and day. With one arm up over behind the neck and the other under and behind the back, they tied his wrists together behind his back. The food at the prison consisted of one small bread roll per person and about 20 ounces of water that was shared between four to five people. People were sleeping in the area where they went to the toilet and they were not allowed to wear shoes."
On China's denial on the use of force to suppress the predominantly Tibetan Uprising, we believe facts on the ground and visuals reaching the outside world do not support this claim. This Uprising involved more than 125 protests covering over 60 counties in the Tibetan areas followed by China military crackdown, called a "people's war" against the Tibetan people. Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party Secretary in the "TAR" clearly stated China's intention when he said: "We are currently in an intense bloody and fiery struggle with the Dalai clique, a life-and-death struggle with the enemy."
According to information reaching our organizations and the Tibetan Government in Exile between 140 and 218 Tibetans had died were killed during protests since 10 March. One sad aspect here is that there were many cases of Tibetan families not being allowed to take custody of the dead to offer funeral services but instead were given the ashes of the deceased.
Concerning the claim of the legal rights and representations for Tibetan detainees, China's response totally fails to provide the full information, including of those Tibetans outside the "Tibet Autonomous Region" who have been sentenced. The threats imposed on Chinese lawyers who volunteered to defend Tibetan detainees show the very discriminatory nature of legal system of Communist China. Ultimately, this Committee must understand that the legal system of China is politically motivated against Tibetans who engage in political activities because the system is maintained to safeguard the interests of the Communist Party of China. The Committee must, therefore, seek full explanation of the 116 Tibetans whom China said were under legal investigation as of June 2008, since its now November, especially when the claim is that this is now the figure of detainees is the "TAR" from the Tibetan Uprising.
As this Committee is aware, since March 2008, an overwhelming number of Tibetans monks, nuns, schoolchildren, farmers, nomads, artists, intellectuals and religious teachers, either disappeared or were detained, facing extreme brutality whilst in custody. Unarmed peaceful protesters have been shot dead, while others have died following torture in prison or in their homes or as a result of suicide due to despair over the crackdown or being forced to denounce the Dalai Lama.
For example, 38 year-old Nechung, a mother of four minor children, died days after her release from detention on 26 March 2008. She spent nine days in prison facing brutal torture at the hands of the prison guards. When she was released, her health was in an extremely critical condition. There were many bruise marks on her body, she was unable to speak and eat, constantly vomiting and could hardly breathe properly.
Another case is that of the enforced disappearance of Tibetan AIDs activist Wangdue, a former political prisoner, since his arrest on 14 March from his home in Lhasa. The whereabouts of Ven. Sonam Rabgyal and four other monks of Ramoche Temple in the Tibetan capital is yet to be ascertained following their arrest during a midnight raid in monks' residence on 7 April 2008. Similarly, the whereabouts of many of the Pangri nuns – some severely beaten in public in the process of being detained -- remains unknown, as do the whereabouts of the abbot of Pangri, Phurbu Rinpoche, a well-known and respected figure in Karze, Sichuan province.
As for extrajudicial killings, a demonstration near Kirti monastery in Ngaba Prefecture, Sichuan Province on March 16 left 10 to 20 demonstrators dead and about 30 monks from Kirti monastery missing. Local people assumed that they had either been killed or secretly detained.
On 18 October 2008 at around 4 p.m. a student from Chentsa, MalhoTibet Autonomous Prefecture, in Qinghai province committed suicide. Lhundrub aged 17, jumped from the roof of the school building. Before his death he had left a note addressed to his parents, teachers and fellow students, which said that he was not committing suicide for his personal reasons but as a proof for the world community that Tibetans are deprived of freedom and basic human rights.
As this Committee began its session on Monday, Jigme, a Tibetan monk, who provided a rare first-hand account of China's crackdown on Tibetan protesters to foreign media was re-arrested by the Chinese authorities. According to the source, "Around fifty People Armed Police (PAP) and Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials in several military trucks came to Labrang and raided a Tibetan home from where they arrested Jigme and took him away in a military vehicle. And nobody knows where he was taken to and for what reason".
In a video-interview with the Tibetan Service of Voice of America on 3 September, Venerable Jigme described the initial stage of his arrest on 22 March in these words: I was put on a chair with my hands tied at the back. A young soldier pointed an automatic rifle at me and said in Chinese, "This is made to kill you, Ahlos (derogatory term used for Tibetans by some Chinese). You make one move, and I will definitely shoot and kill you with this gun. I will throw your corpse in the trash and nobody will ever know." When I heard this, I was not terrified by the gun pointed at my head but by the thought that this man is not only a soldier or security personnel, but also a law enforcement officer, and here he is pointing a gun at an ordinary citizen and uttering such words…[it made me very sad….] as if my heart was shattered in two."
Mr. Chairperson, while recognising the unresolved case of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the Eleventh Panchen Lama, as a continuous crime, we refer the Committee to China's unfulfilled task before the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance which in 1997 requested documentary proof that the Panchen Lama and his family members did not wished to be "disturbed." We request the Committee to take note of China's last response on this case to the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief and urge the Committee to strongly support the call by the Committee on the Rights of the Child that an independent body be given access to visit the Panchen Lama and his family members.
Following the Tibetan Uprising, an intensified form of the 'patriotic education' campaign is being carried throughout the Tibetan Plateau. Monks and nuns are routinely harassed and subjected to severe mental anguish by being forced to publicly denounce their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama. Or when their spiritual leader is defamed as "a devil with a human face but with a heart of a beast" and when Tibetans are told that: "The communist party is like parents to the Tibetan people. The party is the real Buddha for the Tibetans."
New measures have been implemented to purge monasteries of monks and nuns and ban worship in the wake of the protests. These include measures created specifically to cause public humiliation or extreme mental anguish among the monastic community; revealing a systematic new attack on Tibetan Buddhism led by Chinese Party Secretary and President Hu Jintao that is reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairperson and distinguished Members, we urge the Committee to consider the following recommendations in view of the urgent human rights situation faced by the Tibetan people who live under almost 50 years of alien domination:
- To seek an additional report from China to take full stock of the situation on the Tibetan Plateau, including the official figures on arrests, killed, injured, disappeared and sentenced.
- To encourage China to receive the High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Tibetan areas in China as a follow-up to the request made by the former-High Commissioner on 27 March 2008.
- To welcome the recent visit of the Norwegian Parliamentary Delegation to Tibet Autonomous Region and urge the Chinese authorities to receive Special Procedure Mandate-holders to conduct fact-finding mission
- To urge China to abolish the Reeducation through labour system, implement a moratorium on executions, launch of a human rights education programme and establish a national human rights institution based
-To urge China to conduct a national inquiry on all cases of custodial deaths and extrajudicial killings that gives equal focus on cases involving Uyghurs, Mongolians and Tibetans.
I thank you Mr. Chairperson.
November 7, 2008: Geneva; Thirty two delegations from mainland China, Hongkong and Macau presented their report on torture and the experts put forward many questions and sought clarifications on the questions raised. The CAT experts requested particular and specific statistical data on the recent uprising in Tibet, the whereabouts of detainees and missing people in Tibet. There was a lot of concern expressed by the CAT members regarding the human rights violations in Tibet and China on the whole. Strong emphasis was laid on the need to follow-up and essentially implements the recommendation of Committee on the Rights of the Child on Panchen Lama made in the year 2005. On september 20, 2005 Dr. B.Tsering, the president of TWA attended the 36th session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) that called upon the Chinese authorities to allow an independent body to verify the fate of Gedun Choekyi Nyima, the Panchen Lama of Tibet. The request has remains unfulfilled and pending for the last three years.