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Tibet

July 30, 2008
April 1, 2013

Introduction

An unnamed official of the Chinese Communist Party United Front Work Department (UFWD) has outlined new preconditions that the Chinese government expects the Dalai Lama to fulfill if the dialogue between Chinese officials and the Dalai Lama's representatives is to continue, according to a July 6, 2008, Xinhua report (translated in OSC, 07 July 08).


July 9, 2008
October 23, 2013

Chinese officials have disclosed information that, if accurate, shows that authorities have released more than 3,000 of more than 4,400 persons (nearly all Tibetan) whom security officials detained in connection with rioting in March, or who allegedly surrendered to authorities. The reports provide information only about persons whom authorities suspected of participating in rioting during a period of six days in nine county-level Tibetan areas.

Chinese officials have provided no information, however, about a large but unknown number of Tibetans whom security forces detained in connection with peaceful protests over a period of several weeks beginning on March 10. The protests spanned more than 40 additional county-level areas in the Tibetan autonomous areas of China.


June 25, 2008
December 5, 2012

Cell phone, landline, and Internet transmissions have reportedly been disrupted in Tibetan areas of western China, according to foreign media, overseas Tibetan groups, and the blog of a noted Tibetan writer in reports from mid-March to late April. The disruptions come amidst protests by Tibetans that began on March 10. It is unclear to what extent the measures are necessary to protect security in those areas, but their effect, along with other measures such as the ban on foreign journalists entering large parts of western China, have made it difficult to access and confirm information about the protests.


May 12, 2008
April 1, 2013

The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (OHHDL) announced in a May 2, 2008, press release that the Dalai Lama's Special Envoy Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari and Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen would arrive in China on May 3 for "informal talks with representatives of the Chinese leadership." The visit comes on the heels of a cascade of Tibetan protests, some violent, that began in Lhasa on March 10 and spread through at least 52 county-level areas of which approximately two-thirds are in officially designated Tibetan autonomous areas of Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces.


May 12, 2008
December 5, 2012

Foreign media in mid-March reported incidents of censorship of the Internet and international news broadcasts in China following Tibetan protests that began on March 10. The Chinese government and Internet companies operating in China routinely censor political content on the Internet in China, but the recent actions indicate stepped up efforts to control access to information about the protests. About a week after the protests started, foreign news media in China noted that access to foreign Web sites had been blocked, video Web sites and search engine results appeared to be censored, and foreign news broadcasts were temporarily blacked out.


May 12, 2008
December 5, 2012

Chinese officials have barred foreign journalists from entering large parts of western China to cover recent incidents of Tibetan protests. The closed areas include the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), about half of Sichuan province, and parts of Qinghai, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces, according to a March 20 Deutsche Welle article and an April 10 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article. Foreign journalists trying to enter or leave the areas reported incidents where local police locked them in a hotel overnight or threatened to confiscate their footage, according to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) and an April 5 Associated Press (AP) article (via the International Herald Tribune).


May 5, 2008
April 1, 2013

Official Chinese Communist Party and government sources in Ganzi (Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan province, have published unusually detailed accounts of anti-separatism and patriotic education activity in Ganzi county, and of a pilot security initiative underway in selected villages. A January 4, 2008, Ganzi Daily article (translated in OSC, 12 February 2008) noted that the county's remote location and "historical reasons" (a reference to Ganzi's reputation for pro-independence sentiment) had made the work of "maintaining public order and safeguarding stability . . .


May 5, 2008
April 1, 2013

According to information available in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's (CECC) Political Prisoner Database (PPD) since January 30, 2008, the number of known political detentions of Tibetans in 2007 (24) is greater than the number of such known detentions in 2006 (13) and 2004 (15), is currently the same as the number in 2005, and may surpass the number of known political detentions in 2003 (33) and 2002 (36) as additional information about detentions in 2007 emerges from China.


May 5, 2008
December 5, 2012

A year after China's Regulations on Reporting Activities in China by Foreign Journalists During the Beijing Olympic Games and the Preparatory Period went into effect, a Beijing-based association of foreign journalists noted "improved overall reporting conditions for foreign journalists" but also "hot spots where journalists have experienced repeated violations" of the regulations, according to a January 1 Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) press release. The temporary regulations, effective from January 1, 2007 to October 17, 2008, give foreign journalists greater freedom to report in China, something the International Olympic Committee required China do in order to host the 2008 Olympics.


May 5, 2008
April 1, 2013

Introduction

The 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which concluded on October 21, 2007, resulted in the promotions of two high-ranking Party officials, Zhou Yongkang and Liu Yandong, whose recent posts associate them with harsh policies that contribute to the repression of human rights such as the freedoms of religion and expression, and that undermine ethnic minority rights guaranteed by China's Constitution and system of regional ethnic autonomy. The Party’s elevation of Zhou and Liu to the highest levels of Party power is likely to signify strong endorsement of their work, and ensure the continuation and perhaps strengthening of the policies associated with them, especially during the period of the Party's 16th Central Committee (2002-2007).