When security forces arrived at Ngok-Gyalmo monastery in Tibet on April 17 to single out and arrest any monks who had taken part in a protest the previous day, rather than turn over their fellow monks to the authorities, monk after monk began to shout "I am the one!" "I am the one!"
Nine monks were arrested and taken away. [from TIO Australia]
"Nicholas Bequelin, a Xinjiang expert with Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, said Beijing has undercut its credibility by consistently labeling criminal acts, anti-government violence and peaceful dissent as terrorism.
" 'The experience around the world since the launch of the global war on terrorism has taught the international community how easily threats of terrorism can be manipulated by authoritarian governments for their own purposes,' Bequelin said." [AP via the Christian Science Monitor April 15]
And, it should be added, by the U.S. government and the International Olympic Committee (see April 11 post below).
Following the lead of the Chinese government, which has labeled the Dalai Lama a terrorist, the International Olympic Committee has now stated that the huge numbers of demonstrators in London, Paris and San Francisco protesting human rights abuses in China are "terrorists." [NYTimes April 11]
"Protesters objecting to China’s human rights record clashed with the British police on Sunday as the Olympic torch was carried through London on its way to the summer Olympic Games in Beijing. [. . . ] The police said one man was beaten off as he ran toward the flame with a fire extinguisher." [NYTimes online]
On March 26, day one of a three-day, tightly controlled visit to Tibet for foreign journalists, a group of thirty to fifty monks came running from a back room in the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, where the journalists were being given a tour by Chinese government officials. This is what they are saying in the video footage:
"Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!" [A.P.] "Tibetans have no freedom!" [NYTimes] "What the government is saying is not true." [IHT] "They just don't believe us. They think we will come out and cause havoc: smash, destroy, rob, burn. We didn't do anything like that. They are falsely accusing us. We want freedom. They have detained lamas and normal people." [TimesOnline] "We are prisoners here [in the temple]." [IHT] "The government is always telling lies. It's all lies." [IHT] "They killed many people! They killed many people!" [IHT] "They want us to curse the Dalai Lama and that is not right." [IHT] "This [the unrest in Tibet] has nothing to do with the Dalai Lama." [TimesOnline] "Don't believe them. They are tricking you." [IHT]
The penalties for speaking out against the Chinese government in Tibet (and in China), as these monks know, include arrest, imprisonment, torture, and death.
In a small town in Tibet in March, a Canadian film crew unexpectedly captures a protest against Chinese rule by Tibetan nomads. The nomads gallop into the town on horseback, head for the Chinese government headquarters, are teargassed, gallop off to the local elementary school, take down the Chinese flag flying in front of it, hoist up the Tibetan flag, and gallop back out of town.
protest at chinese consulate NYC 3/16/2008 photo by tenzin lekshay
Ganden Monastery March 20 [photo from AP]
