Tibet
Officials in Lhasa city, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), have implemented a "strike hard" anti-crime campaign running from mid-January until late March 2009―a period of time that brackets a series of dates that many Tibetans consider to have a high level of cultural and political sensitivity. The campaign aims to "strike hard according to law against all kinds of illegal criminal activity and to vigorously uphold the city's social order and stability," according to a January 23 report (in Chinese) published in the Communist Party-run Lhasa Evening News (LEN).
A Beijing-based think tank released a report in May 2009 that rejected the Chinese government's principal assertion about the cause of Tibetan protests and rioting in March 2008. The report, titled "An Investigative Report Into the Social and Economic Causes of the 3.14 Incident in Tibetan Areas," concluded that the protests and rioting were not the exclusive result of external influence by the Dalai Lama and organizations that the Chinese government associates with him (i.e. "masterminded by the Dalai Lama's clique," Xinhua, reprinted in People's Daily, 22 March 08), but were also the result of domestic ("internal") issues.
Deputies to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) People's Congress voted on January 19, 2009, to establish "Serfs Emancipation Day," a public holiday celebrating the March 28, 1959, Chinese government decree that dissolved the Dalai Lama's Lhasa-based Tibetan government, according to two January 19 Xinhua reports (1, 2 (translated in OSC, 22 January 09).
The following text was retrieved from the China Tibet News Web site on January 22, 2013.
Transcript (PDF) (Text)
At this CECC Roundtable, a panel of experts discussed the Chinese government's treatment of and policies toward asylum seekers and refugee communities, particularly North Koreans fleeing persecution and starvation in their homeland, and assessed Beijing's compliance with international laws and conventions that protect refugees.
Transcript (PDF) (Text)
One year ago, a wave of protests began in Lhasa and swept across the Tibetan Plateau. At this CECC Roundtable, a panel of experts discussed conditions in the Tibetan autonomous areas of China. The Chinese government over the past year continued to press policies that have stoked frustration among Tibetans, saying such policies are essential for stability.
Internet and cell phone text messaging services in Tibetan areas of western China reportedly have been disrupted, according to a March 10, 2009, Associated Press (AP) article and a February 22, 2009, Reuters article. While access to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) itself has remained severely restricted, foreign journalists recently reported greater harassment in Tibetan areas in neighboring provinces outside the TAR, according to a March 9 statement of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC), an association of Beijing-based journalists.
The Chinese government has directed schools throughout the country to implement "ethnic unity education," in a stated effort to promote Communist Party policy on ethnic minorities. The trial Guiding Program on Ethnic Unity Education in Schools, issued November 26, 2008, by the Ministry of Education and State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) and publicized in December (see a December 15 Xinhua report on the Central People's Government Web site), calls for "ethnic unity education" starting in grade three of elementary school and extending to high school and vocational schools.
A Communist Party-run newspaper has provided the first detailed information about Tibetans convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment for nonviolent activity that authorities link to rioting on March 14, 2008, in and near Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The November 8, 2008, Lhasa Evening News (LEN) report asserted that the defendants had "endangered state security." China's state-run media has previously provided legal process information about the cases of only a few dozen Tibetan "rioters," but almost no information about the large but unknown number of Tibetans believed to have been detained in connection with peaceful protest activity. (See the CECC 2008 Annual Report for more information on the 2008 Tibetan protests and their consequences.)
A senior Communist Party official told the Dalai Lama's representatives during the most recent round of formal dialogue on the Tibet issue that the Dalai Lama should "face reality" and "fundamentally change his political positions," according to a November 6, 2008, Xinhua report. Special Envoy Lodi Gyari and Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen arrived in Beijing on October 30 for the eighth round of dialogue with Chinese officials since such contacts resumed in 2002, and returned to India on November 5 following official meetings in Beijing on November 4 and 5, according to a November 6 statement by Gyari (Tibetan Government-in-Exile, 6 November 08).