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 People’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.
Photo: AFP
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 China’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 — the de facto representative of the exiled government in Taiwan — said that the way in which Chinese treat Tibetans showed them to be a conquered and colonized people.
“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,” he said. “We will remember this for generations to come and this memory will constantly remind us of what we should do.”
Former Regional Tibetan Youth Congress Taiwan president Tashi Tsering said he was not surprised by what Chinese police officers did to Tibetans.
“That’s how the Chinese Communist Party has always treated Tibetans,” Tashi said via telephone. “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.”
He called on the international community to launch a probe into human rights violations in Tibet.
Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
RSS