DHARMSALA, India, March 25, (Agencies): Nearly 140 people have been killed in demonstrations and a crackdown by China’s government since protests against Chinese rule started in Tibet on March 10, the main Tibetan exile group said.
The Tibetan government-in-exile in the northern Indian city of Dharmsala released a statement late Monday giving the names and details of 40 Tibetans killed since the protests started in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.
It said about 100 others also have been killed.
The group’s previous overall toll was 99 killed.
Beijing’s official death toll from the protests in Lhasa is 22, including civilians killed in rioting and three Tibetan suspects who jumped to their deaths to avoid arrest.
Protests started March 10 in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule. They turned violent four days later, touching off demonstrations among Tibetans in three neighboring Chinese provinces.
“While we have confirmed information on the death toll from the demonstrations so far, it has been extremely difficult to get the details due to all the restrictions that have been imposed by Chinese authorities,” the statement from the Tibetan government-in-exile said.
“As the demonstrations continue to spread vastly to many areas in Tibet, the number of people who have died from the brutal military and police suppression during the peaceful demonstrations is astounding,” the statement said.
The riots and protests, the largest and most sustained in almost 20 years, have embarrassed and angered Beijing. They have also drawn attention to the country’s human rights record ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.
Nearly 50 Tibetan exiles in India began a global torch relay Tuesday with a symbolic “Olympic” flame that will end in Tibet on the day of the Summer Games’ opening ceremonies in Beijing, organizers said.
The Tibetan torch relay began in the northern Indian city of Dharmsala a day after protesters of China’s human rights policies disrupted the official Olympic flame-lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia.
Tibetan exiles plan to highlight their people’s plight under Chinese rule with the relay and stage their own version of the Olympics from May 15-25 in Dharmsala.
Tsewang Rigzin, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, said organizers would take the torch by road and air to cities on five continents in countries such as the United States, France, Australia, Japan and Nepal, among other destinations.
They plan to finish the relay in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, on Aug 8, as the world’s attention turns to Beijing.
Education
China on Tuesday called for expanding its widely reviled “patriotic education” classes in Tibetan monasteries as its media gushed about “the perfect start” to the Olympics – ignoring protesters at the beginning of the torch relay.
As the Communist leadership mulls ways to counter international criticism in the wake of anti-government riots in Lhasa, their moves indicate a domestic strategy that couples a hard-line approach with a relentlessly upbeat public relations campaign.
Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu announced “patriotic education” classes would be strengthened in monasteries as he chided monks for “violating” Tibetan Buddhist doctrines by participating in protests, the Tibet Daily reported Tuesday.
Unrest among Tibet’s Buddhist clergy has been blamed in part on these compulsory classes, which force monks to make ritual denouncements of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and declare their loyalty to Beijing.
Despite such complaints – and repeated government claims that all Tibetans support the Chinese government’s stance – Meng said during his trip to Lhasa the campaign should be expanded in a bid to “grasp and direct public opinion in the correct direction.”
“Deeply enact propaganda education in ethnic and religious policies and the legal system among all the temples,” he was quoted as saying. “Let all people at home and abroad and all ethnic groups thoroughly understand the true facts of the matter.”
His Monday visit was the first by a high-level central government official since protests in the Tibetan capital turned violent on March 14, sparking sympathy demonstrations in neighboring provinces in western China. Thousands of troops and police have been deployed to contain the unrest.
In visits to Jokhang Temple, Tibet’s most sacred shrine, as well as Sera and Drepung monasteries, where the initial protests were launched on March 10, Meng criticized the monks for participating in the protests.
“Every religion should carry out their activities according to the law and should never undermine national solidarity,” he was quoted as saying by Xinhua. “Participating in the riot essentially violated the doctrines of Tibetan Buddhism.”
He was accompanied by Zhang Qingli, Tibet’s hard-line Communist Party leader, who said the region was in the front lines of a battle with the Dalai Lama and his followers. “From start to finish, we face a prolonged, extreme, complex struggle,” he said.
Their harsh words signaled China’s intention to keep a hard-line stance in its dealings with Tibet.
Meanwhile, the European Union, United States and other Western nations urged China on Tuesday to stop using force against Tibetan protesters, and said the demonstrations should be peaceful.
The EU told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that it is deeply concerned about the unrest in Tibet and that it is spreading to other regions of China.
“We urge Chinese authorities to refrain from using force against those involved in unrest and call on demonstrators to desist from violence,” said Slovenia’s Ambassador Andrej Logar, who currently represents the 27-nation bloc at the UN body.
The Chinese government should lift restrictions on movement and information, he said.
“The EU stresses the importance it attaches to the right of freedom of expression and peaceful protest,” Logar said, adding that the Chinese government should address Tibetans’ human rights concerns.
The United States, Australia and Canada joined the Europeans in expressing deep concern over the recent developments in Tibet and some other Chinese provinces. They said China should engage in dialogue with Tibetan representatives.
“We urge China to respect the fundamental and universally recognized right of all citizens to peacefully exercise their political and religious views,” said Warren W. Tichenor, US ambassador to UN offices in Geneva.
Laureate
Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu appealed Tuesday to China to end the violence in Tibet and begin talks with exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
“China, poised to receive the world during the forthcoming Olympic Games, needs to make sure the eyes of the world will see that China has changed, that China is willing to be a responsible partner in international global affairs,” Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, said in a statement.
“Killing, imprisonment and torture are not a sport: the innocents must be released and given free and fair trials,” he said.
Several days of anti-government protests led by monks spiraled into violence on March 14 in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa. China’s government has said that at least 22 people have died in Lhasa, while Tibetan rights groups say nearly 140 Tibetans have been killed, including 19 in Gansu province.
Tutu urged Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to visit Tibet and asked that she be allowed to travel and speak with observers so that she could report on the events which led to this “international outcry for justice.”
The uprising is the broadest and most sustained against Chinese rule in almost two decades, and the communist leadership has accused Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and his supporters of masterminding the dissent.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier phoned his Chinese counterpart Tuesday and called for an end to the violence in Tibet.
“Steinmeier has called on Beijing again to establish the biggest-possible transparency regarding the events in Tibet,” a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
Steinmeier told Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi that he hopes for “a permanent end of the violence and a pacification of the situation,” the spokesman added.
Several days of anti-government protests led by monks spiraled into violence on March 14 in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa. China’s government has said that at least 22 people have died in Lhasa, while Tibetan rights groups say nearly 140 Tibetans were killed, including 19 in Gansu province.
The continued Tibetan resistance and the hardline stance by officials has put China’s human rights record under the spotlight and has frustrated the communist leadership, which is hoping for a smooth run-up to the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics.
Responsibility
French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged China on Tuesday to show responsibility over the unrest in Tibet and refused to rule out boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.
Sarkozy spoke shortly after a media rights group which staged a brief protest at the Olympic torch-lighting ceremony in Greece on Monday urged him to threaten to boycott the Games’ opening ceremony because of Tibet.
“I don’t close the door to any option, but I think it’s more prudent to reserve my responses to concrete developments in the situation,” Sarkozy said, when asked about a possible boycott.
Aides later said he was talking only of a possible boycott of the opening ceremony, not of the Games in general.
“All options are open but I appeal to the sense of responsibility of Chinese authorities,” he said.
France has called for an end to the violence, in which Tibet’s government-in-exile says 140 people have been killed. But like other Western governments, it has rejected the idea of boycotting the Games.
Sarkozy said China had to understand there was worldwide concern over the situation in Tibet and he said action would depend on how its leaders responded.
“I want dialogue to begin and I will graduate my response according to the response given by Chinese authorities,” he said.
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has called on China to let foreign media into Tibet and on Tuesday called for an end to China’s “repression” of dissent there.