Tibetan Monks Missing Since April Raid: TCHRD

5 monks are reportedly missing since the raid by Chinese security officials on Ramoche Temple following protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March. The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) said the whereabouts of Ramoche monastery’s Chagzoed (manager and treasurer) Sonam Rabgyal and four other monks could not be ascertained. The monks, say the Tibetan right group based here, were arrested during a ‘midnight raid in monks' residence on 7 April 2008’.

Sonam Rabgyal, 39, a native of Markham County, Chamdo Prefecture, "Tibet Autonomous Region" ('TAR'), Damdul, Rabgyal and two others of Ramoche Temple located in Lhasa came under the suspicion of Chinese police for engaging in pro-Dalai Lama activities.

According to the TCHRD, the monks held a long life offering prayer to the Dalai Lama and read aloud requests for prayer offerings (Tib: Kyabtho) making direct reference to the Dalai Lama's long life and quick resolution of the Tibet issue during the annual Great Prayer Festival (Monlam Chenmo) on 14 February this year. According to sources, the "work team" under the "Patriotic Re-education" Campaign stationed inside the temple knew about their action and interrogated the monks for many days.

On 7 April 2008, around 70 monks of Ramoche Temple were detained after the PSB and PAP forces carried out midnight raid in monks' residences. Although most were released after days of interrogation the whereabouts and conditions of the five- monks still are not known, TCHRD said.

Sources have told TCHRD that religious artifacts made of gold and silver had disappeared after the raid. “Severe restrictions still continue to be put on the movement of the monks of major monasteries since protests broke out in March.

”Even today China has the major monasteries around Lhasa virtually sealed off though officially declaring them reopened to tourism and pilgrimage.

Ramoche Temple housed 115 monks, a mandatory limit set by the Chinese authorities.

In

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=22895&article=Tibetan+Monks+Missing+Since+April+Raid%3a+TCHRD

Dissidente Chinês sob detenção em estado crítico de saúde

A saúde do dissidente Budista Chinês, conhecido por defender o Tibete e outros assuntos sensíveis, é crítica vendo-se o detido impossibilitado de comunicar livremente com a sua família, de acordo com fonte que esteve recentemente com ele.

Em Abril, Hu Jia foi acusado de "incitar a subversão do poder do estado" devido a ter criticado o dominante partido Comunista, uma sentença que encontrou rápida condenação por parte dos E.U.A., Grã-Bretanha e Nações Unidas.

Ele encontra-se presentemente a cumprir uma pena de três anos e meio numa prisão próxima da cidade de Tianjin (perto de Pequim) e foi referido como um potencial vencedor do Prémio Nobel da Paz deste ano.

In
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE48Q19W20080927?sp=true

Chinese armed police used spades and meat choppers to beat Tibetan monks

Free Tibet Campaign yesterday (1) reported the beating of 50 Tibetan monks by Chinese armed police at Kirti monastery on 24 September. Kirti monastery is in Ngaba county (Ch: Aba) in the Amdo region of Tibet (Ch: Sichuan province).

Free Tibet Campaign has now received further information from an extremely reliable source on what happened at Kirti monastery.

The monk who was initially beaten on the evening of 24 September has been named as Jimpa Ladja. Jimpa Ladja had left the monastery buildings to go to the toilet but had not gone beyond the outer perimeter of the monastery. (Kirti monastery is surrounded by Chinese armed police. The police are stationed at nine separate checkpoints around the perimeter of the monastery. There are between ten and fifteen police at each checkpoint and each checkpoint is surrounded by a fence. Beyond the checkpoints a separate line has been drawn around the perimeter of the monastery. Monks are forbidden to move beyond the perimeter without permission.)

According to the source, Jimpa Ladja was stopped by armed police at one of the checkpoints while he was walking back to the monastery. The police accused Ladja of walking beyond the perimeter and beat him badly, despite Ladja’s persistent denials that he had crossed the outer perimeter.

Following the beating Ladja was able to walk to a restaurant which is owned by Kirti monastery. Approximately 50 monks were eating at the restaurant when Ladja arrived. Ladja was bleeding and told the monks that he had been beaten, even though he had not crossed the monastery perimeter. According to the source, two of the monks at the restaurant immediately went to the police station situated to the north of Kirti to demand to know why Ladja had been beaten. Chinese armed personnel at the station threatened the monks, firing live rounds into the sky and into the ground in front of the monks. The monks ran back to the restaurant, chased by Chinese armed police who demanded that Ladja leave the restaurant immediately.

According to the source, two separate monks at the restaurant protested to the armed police that it was unreasonable to punish monks for leaving the monastery to go to the toilet. The monks asked the police to call their superiors to settle the problem. One of the police made a call but soon after the call was made two truckloads of armed police arrived at the monastery. The police were armed with rifles, spades and meat choppers.

When the police arrived the monks lay on the ground, and even removed their garments to show the police that they were not armed, according to the source. Despite the absence of violence from the monks, the police beat the monks severely, using the butts of their rifles, spades and even the meat choppers. Five of the 50 monks had to be hospitalized due to the severity of their injuries. The hospitalized monks are: Lama Sotse; Rabgye; Tsang Chopel; Labchoek and Lophel. According to the source, Rabgye and Tsang Chopel had suffered particularly severe injuries after being attacked with spades and meat choppers. The injured monks were taken to the civil hospital in Ngaba town. On 26 September only Lama Sotse remained in the hospital.

The whereabouts of the other four monks who were hospitalized are presently unknown.

Free Tibet Campaign spokesperson, Matt Whitticase, said:

“The Chinese government yesterday issued a White Paper (2) claiming that Tibetan religious beliefs are protected by law. Such claims are shameful in the light of the credible reports we have received of this latest act of brutality against Tibetan monks.

“Such abuses by the Chinese authorities are routine in Tibet and this dire situation is exacerbated by the refusal of the authorities to allow reporters unrestricted access to Tibet. The international community must exert far greater pressure than it has so far on China to open up Tibet to the scrutiny of the media and independent agencies such as the UN and the Red Cross.”

Ends

Notes to editor:

(1) http://www.freetibet.org/newsmedia/250908

(2) http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-09/25/content_10108521.htm:

Link_Notícia

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4832971.ece?Submitted=true

S.S. Dalai Lama oficialmente convidado a falar no Parlamento Europeu

S.S. o Dalai Lama foi oficialmente convidado a falar no Parlamento Europeu a 4 de Dezembro deste ano.

Hans-Gert Pottering, Presidente do PE confirmou a Thubten Wangchen, Director da Fundacion Casa del Tibet em Barcelona, que S.S. havia sido oficialmente convidado a falar no Parlamento, relativamente às suas intenções quanto ao assunto Tibete - China.

Pottering recebeu oficialmente Thubten la que lhe apresentou uma recolha de 30,000 assinaturas, no âmbito da campanha "SOS Tibet", e apelou a que Pottering interviesse num diálogo sério entre S.S. o Dalai Lama e o presidente Chinês Hu Jintao.

Também presentes na reunião estavam o parlamentar Thomas Mann, líder do Grupo de Apoio ao Tibete do PE, a parlamentar espanhola María Badía, Yangdutso Yangkartsang, Presidente da comunidade Tibetana na Bélgica, Tenzin Wangmo do Bureau du Tibet em Bruxelas e Marcin Libicki, Presidente do Comité de Petições do PE.

Durante a reunião Pöttering expressou preocupação relativamente à actual situação vivida no Tibete e garantiu o seu apoio a uma solução pacífica para a questão Tibetana. Pöttering foi um dos principais defensores da resolução adoptada pela maioria do PE em Abril deste ano, que condenava a brutal repressão empreendida pelo governo Chinês sobre os Tibetanos, na sequência das manifestações de 10 de Março.

Thubten Wangchen, agradecendo a Pöttering e ao P.E. o seu apoio, afirmou que a não-violência e a verdade continuam a ser as ferramentas mais poderosas para os Tibetanos atingirem o seu objectivo.

In
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?article=Dalai+Lama+Officially+Invited+to+Speak+at+EP&id=22881

Chinese armed police renew repression at Kirti monastery in Ngaba town

Free Tibet Campaign has received reports of renewed repression by the Chinese authorities at Kirti monastery in Ngaba county (Ch: Aba county) in the Amdo region of Tibet (Ch: Sichuan province).


According to a very reliable source who lives in Ngaba county, up to 50 monks from Kirti monastery were beaten by armed police on 24 September. Four monks were so badly injured that they had to be hospitalised, according to the source.


Ngaba county has been under tight control by the authorities since March 16 2008 when, according to eyewitnesses, armed police fired into a crowd of protesting Tibetans, killing up to 30 Tibetans.


According to the source, trouble flared again at Kirti monastery (situated about 2km from Ngaba town) yesterday following the severe beating of one of Kirti’s monks by armed police. The monk had left the monastery earlier that day, having obtained the relevant permission from the monastery authorities. As the monk returned to the monastery a short time before dark, he was stopped by Chinese armed police. According to the source, the returning monk was beaten so badly by the armed police that he was bleeding when he managed to return to the monastery.


Monks asked the bleeding monk what had happened; the monk told them he had been beaten by armed police.


Fifty monks from Kirti monastery immediately went to a police station that is situated in the immediate vicinity of the monastery. The monks argued with the police, according to the source, and demanded the police explain the reason for the severe beating of the monk. Police told the protesting monks that they would call local authorities to discuss the matter.


The source reported that shortly after the call was made, two truckloads of armed police arrived at the police station. The police immediately started to beat the monks at the police station, even though the monks had refrained from becoming violent on the arrival of the police, according to the source. Four of the monks were beaten so badly that they had to be hospitalised. Free Tibet Campaign has not been able to confirm where the monks are hospitalised. The four who were hospitalised are high-ranking monks at Kirti monastery and, according to the source, one of them could be the abbot of Kirti, although this could not be confirmed immediately.


Communication with monks at the monastery has been impossible today and it has not been possible to confirm the name of the monk who was initially beaten, nor the names of the four monks that were hospitalised later.


Tension between Tibetans and the local authorities have been high since March 16. On August 10 Free Tibet Campaign reported that troop numbers in the town had risen from around 2000 to around 10,000 since the beginning of August. Free Tibet Campaign also reported credible eyewitness reports that two Tibetan women had been wounded in Ngaba town by gunfire thought to have come from armed Chinese troops on August 9.


Matt Whitticase of Free Tibet Campaign said: “Reports of terrible repression continue to filter out of Tibet, despite the Chinese government’s strenuous attempts to cover up its abuses with its communication blackoutt. The Chinese government must launch an immediate investigation into the beatings by armed police at Kirti and must also immediately confirm the whereabouts of the monks that were hospitalised yesterday.”

In
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=22879&article=Chinese+armed+police+renew+repression+at+Kirti+monastery+in+Ngaba+town

UN demands answers on Chinese torture

China will have to answer the questions during two hearings in Geneva at the beginning of November.

The UN Committee against Torture excoriated China for the "continued pervasiveness" of torture "in the criminal justice system".

It demanded a list of all the people detained in connection with the riots in Tibet in March, including their current location and convictions. It also asked for an explanation as to why detainees were denied access to a doctor during their imprisonment both before and after trial.

"At least 30 persons were found guilty and sentenced less than six weeks after the events, please clarify the basis of these sentences," the committee asked.

It demanded full details about the number of people who were killed in the riots, which spread from Tibet into the neighbouring provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai. Reports at the time suggested that over 100 people had died in clashes with security forces.

The list of questions, which is dated August 2008, emerged just after Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, made China's first address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

It also coincided with a Chinese "White Paper" on the "protection and development of Tibetan culture."

According to Xinhua, the state news agency, the white paper was designed to "give the international community a better understanding of the reality of the protection and development of Tibetan culture" and to refute charges of "the so-called cultural genocide" in the region.

The paper attacked the Dalai Lama "and his cohorts" in the West for conspiring to "force the Tibetan ethnic group and its culture to stagnate and remain in a state similar to the Middle Ages."

China has compiled five reports to the Committee against Torture. In the latest report, dated June 2007, it said that the "prohibition of torture has been a consistent position of the Chinese government" and listed a number of regulations that have been brought into place to guard human rights. (?!?)

Its report claimed that the number of criminal charges brought because torture was used to extort confessions had fallen from 143 in 1999 to 53 in 2004. However, the Chinese report failed to provide any detail on the cases or to comment on specific incidents raised by the UN.

In its latest grilling, the Committee also asked why China had ignored its recommendation to abolish "the Re-Education through Labour system", which sees dissidents sentenced to hard labour. "The system ... aims at altering the personality of the detainee [and] reportedly causes severe physical and mental pain and suffering," it said.

It also lashed out at the use of "retrievers (jiefang renyuan)", a large number of unofficial thugs who violently round up dissidents and take them to the authorities.

The UN also said it had heard that "the State party has established detention facilities especially to detain petitioners coming to Beijing" and asked for a full clarification, as well as for China to reveal the whereabouts of a number of high-profile dissidents and their legal representatives. It alleged that many of the dissidents had been "forcibly disappeared".

In
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3080043/UN-demands-answers-on-Chinese-torture.html

Teriam os Srs. Deputados Portugueses coragem para tanto..?

A delegação Chinesa foi hoje calorosamente recebida pelos membros do parlamento Checo com bandeiras Tibetanas e Taiwanesas.

Horrorizados, os membros da delegação anunciaram que deixariam o país...

In

http://www.novinky.cz/clanek/150431-zeleni-vystrnadili-ze-snemovny-cinskou-delegaci-tibetskou-vlajkou.html

Tradução

Sandra Pikorova

UE proíbe produtos chineses para crianças

A União Europeia vai impor um embargo total aos produtos para crianças provenientes da China considerados como produtos de risco, na sequência do escândalo do leite contaminado chinês, anunciou esta quinta-feira a Comissão Europeia.


Três medidas estão previstas nesta fase, que deverão entrar em vigor na sexta-feira.


Todos os produtos provenientes da China que contenham mais de 15 por cento de leite em pó, como biscoitos ou chocolate, serão submetidos a testes de qualidade. Prevê-se também fiscalizar os produtos deste tipo que já se encontrem no mercado europeu.


A Comissão prevê "impor um embargo total sobre os produtos provenientes da China para crianças que contenham qualquer percentagem de leite", por medida de precaução. Os produtos lácteos já são alvo de embargo desde 2002 na UE.


O escândalo de produtos contaminados com melamina deu-se com a revelação de que produtos lácteos produzidos por pelo menos 22 empresas chinesas continham melamina, um composto químico com alto teor de nitrogénio que perturba o funcionamento do sistema urinário.


Até ao momento, a melamina já levou à morte de quatro bebés, havendo cerca de 53.000 intoxicados na China, 13.000 dos quais hospitalizados, dos quais 104 em estado grave, e 40.000 sob vigilância médica.


In
http://jn.sapo.pt/PaginaInicial/Sociedade/Interior.aspx?content_id=1017879

Envio de carta à Sra. Consul-Geral do Nepal

Apoiantes do Grupo de Apoio ao Tibete, expressando uma séria preocupaçao com a situaçao vivida pelos Tibetanos no Nepal, procederam ontem ao envio da seguinte carta, à Sra. Consul- Geral do Nepal em Portugal.

Lisboa, 22 de Setembro de 2008

Exma. Senhora

Cônsul Geral do Nepal

Dra. Maria Teresa Cruz,

Em primeiro lugar vimos desde já congratulá-la pelo seu empenho e actividades em prol do Nepal.

Em segundo lugar, vimos manifestar-lhe as nossas sérias preocupaçoes relativamente às notícias alusivas à nova política encetada pelo governo Nepalês, de investigação e deportação dos Tibetanos residentes no Nepal que não possuem documentos válidos de residência.

Em nome de alguns representantes e apoiantes do Grupo de Apoio ao Tibete existentes em Portugal, escrevemos-lhe com o intuito de expressar a nossa grave preocupação relativamente ao destino destes Tibetanos, a maioria dos quais têm laços de longa data com o Nepal. De preocupação especial são os 137 Tibetanos que se encontram no Tibetan Refugee Reception Center em Kathmandu, e a quem foi solicitada a apresentação de evidências relativamente ao seu estatuto legal no Nepal. Caso não possuam os documentos válidos e necessários serão deportados para o Tibete.Como sabe cerca de 2,500-3,500 Tibetanos saem anualmente do Tibete, escapando assim à dura repressão imposta pelo governo Chinês, e que inclui a supressão da liberdade de expressão, reunião e religião.

Os Tibetanos enfrentam assim o risco da tortura e da detenção caso regressem ao Tibete. Como parte da Convenção Contra a Tortura, o Nepal encontra-se vinculado ao Artigo 3 da Convenção, que proíbe qualquer deportação sempre que um indivíduo corra o risco da tortura. Nós temos a confiança de que o governo Nepalês respeitará esta obrigação e não forçará nenhum Tibetano sem documentos válidos a regressar ao Tibete. Os Tibetanos que chegaram ao Nepal antes de 1989 podem, juntamente com os seus filhos, receber o Certificado de Registo de Refugiado, que lhes permite permanecer no Nepal. Milhares de Tibetanos, elegíveis para possuírem o Certificado - incluindo possivelmente alguns em detenção - têm esperado durante anos para que o mesmo seja processado e no interim encontram-se sem documentos válidos.Nós apelamos ao governo Nepalês para que este conclua a atribuição dos Certificados a todos os Tibetanos elegíveis para ter residência legal no Nepal. Este ano demonstrou ao mundo que o domínio brutal do governo Chinês sobre o Tibete é um assunto de significância global; um assunto que deve ser abordado mediante esforços multilaterais, de forma a que uma resolução seja encontrada.

O governo Chinês parece estar a exercer uma forte pressão sobre o Nepal de forma a que os Tibetanos sejam expulsos e as vozes dos que defendem os direitos humanos e a liberdade no Tibete sejam silenciadas. A única solução viável relativamente ao número de Tibetanos que circula pelo Nepal, é que o governo Chinês trabalhe com o povo Tibetano de forma a encontrar uma resolução para a questão Tibetana.

Tal como foi evidente no período que conduziu aos, e mesmo durante os Jogos Olímpicos, em todo o mundo as pessoas encontram-se gravemente preocupadas com a situação vivida no interior do Tibete. Agora, o governo Nepalês tem uma oportunidade muito importante de demonstrar uma liderança visionária face a este assunto, abordando as causas últimas subjacentes ao fluxo de entrada de refugiados Tibetanos no Nepal, ao invés de se centrar em medidas superficiais e de curto-prazo.O mundo observará atentamente quando o Nepal realizar a sua primeira aparição no palco mundial, na 63ª sessão da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas, uma instituição fundada sobre os princípios da paz e cooperação internacional, direitos e auto-determinação de todos os povos, assim como de respeito pelos direitos humanos.

Desta forma nós apelamos ao governo Nepalês de modo a que respeite estes princípios fundamentais e institua novas políticas que respeitem o direito à liberdade de expressão e reunião e contribua para a resolução a longo prazo do domínio Chinês sobre o Tibete.

Grupo de Apoio ao Tibete

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