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Video posted online
shows greater repression in Tibet
By J. Michael Cole / Staff Reporter
An undated handout photo released
by FreeTibet shows Chinese paramilitary police guarding monks wearing placards
on their necks showing their names and alleged crimes committed in a Tibetan
area of Sichuan Province, China.
Photo: AFP
Recently leaked footage of a crackdown by
Chinese security forces in Tibet indicates that the level of repression against
Tibetans appears to be much more serious than generally acknowledged by the
international community.
A video posted on the exile Tibetan Web site TibetOnline.tv on Wednesday showed
a raid by a Chinese SWAT team comprising about 100 Peopleˇ¦s Armed Police (PAP)
officers on what is believed to be Unit 2 of Dode Village, near the Sera
monastery northeast of Lhasa.
The quality footage, which is believed to have been shot in 2008, displays an
unprecedented show of force by Chinese authorities, with SWAT teams, accompanied
by numerous dogs and an armored vehicle, assuming attack formation and aiming
assault rifles at sleeping villagers. In all, four confused-looking men and one
elderly woman are taken away. Each is forced to stare into the camera and
provide details to the cameraman, who is presumably a PAP member.
Unlike previous unrest, such as the 1989 riots in Lhasa or the March 2008
incident, during which nervous and sometimes vengeful PAP officers were
confronted with an emergency, the troops in the video are not responding to any
immediate threat.
As of last evening, the 22-minute video appeared to have been taken offline. It
has since emerged on YouTube.
The material follows the release on the citizen journalism Boxun Web site last
week of eight photographs showing Tibetan prisoners being paraded by a large
contingent of armed police in Chinaˇ¦s Sichuan Province, also in 2008 or later.
The two releases have led analysts to conclude that someone in China, perhaps
within the security apparatus, is leaking information to show the true scale of
repression in Tibet and neighboring areas in China.
Reacting to the video, Dawa Tsering, chairman of the Tibet Religious Foundation
of His Holiness the Dalai Lama ˇX the de facto representative of the exiled
government in Taiwan ˇX said that the way in which Chinese treat Tibetans showed
them to be a conquered and colonized people.
ˇ§Any Tibetan with a heart will never forget this humiliation, we will not forget
how arrogant the Chinese are and the humiliation we went through,ˇ¨ he said. ˇ§We
will remember this for generations to come and this memory will constantly
remind us of what we should do.ˇ¨
Former Regional Tibetan Youth Congress Taiwan president Tashi Tsering said he
was not surprised by what Chinese police officers did to Tibetans.
ˇ§Thatˇ¦s how the Chinese Communist Party has always treated Tibetans,ˇ¨ Tashi said
via telephone. ˇ§The Chinese always claim they respect human rights, but what
they do is different from what they say. Taiwanese should know this and be very
careful when dealing with China.ˇ¨
He called on the international community to launch a probe into human rights
violations in Tibet.
Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin
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