Tibet

Hundreds of Tibetan university graduates staged a week-long protest in Lhasa city, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), in late October against what they claimed are TAR government hiring practices that discriminate against Tibetans, according to a November 8 Radio Free Asia (RFA) report. The protest took place after the TAR government conducted a civil service examination on September 30 of 1,000 applicants to fill 100 employment positions. The report did not provide information about the number of Tibetan and Han Chinese applicants who took the examination, or whether an offer of employment depended solely on examination scores. Officials subsequently offered jobs to 98 Han Chinese and 2 Tibetan applicants, according to a source cited in the article.

Officials detained Jigme Gyatso at his restaurant in March 1996, and a court sentenced him in November 1996 to 15 years' imprisonment for counterrevolution. The 1997 revision to the Criminal Law eliminated this offense. The Dialogue article reports that Jigme Gyatso received a three-year extension in May 2004 for "inciting splittism" after he shouted pro-Dalai Lama slogans in TAR Prison (Drapchi). According to a March 2006 report by Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, describing his late-2005 mission to China, Jigme Gyatso told Nowak during an interview conducted at Qushui Prison, opened near Lhasa in 2005, that the sentence extension was for two years.

The Gannan Intermediate People's Court in Gansu province sentenced Choekyi Drolma, a Buddhist nun, to three years' imprisonment in December 2005 for "inciting splittism," according to official Chinese information that has recently become available. She was among five Tibetan monks and nuns detained in 2005 in Xiahe (Sangchu), in Gannan (Kanlho) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) in Gansu. Public security officials detained Choekyi Drolma, along with nuns Tamdrin Tsomo and Yonten Drolma of Gedun Tengyeling Nunnery, and monks Dargyal Gyatso and Jamyang Samdrub of Labrang Tashikhyil Monastery, on May 22, 2005, on suspicion that they circulated and displayed letter-sized posters in Xiahe and other locations that were critical of the Chinese government, according to NGO and news media reports.

Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, the Dalai Lama's Special Envoy, described the obstacles affecting the dialogue between the Dalai Lama's representatives and Chinese officials during a November 14 address at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Chinese public security officials detained nine Tibetans in Ganzi (Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan province, between March and August, 2006, according to a series of reports between June and September by Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Phayul.com. Officials detained the Tibetans following incidents of distributing or displaying pro-independence leaflets and posters, and in at least one case, possessing printed matter that included photographs of the Dalai Lama. Three detainees are Buddhist nuns, one is a former nun, and one is a 16-year-old female student. Three of the four males are Buddhist monks. Eight of the nine detained Tibetans live in Ganzi county, the residence of more Tibetan political prisoners than anywhere outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), according to information in the CECC Political Prisoner Database (PPD).

Communist Party and government officials, acting as officials of a Chinese NGO, hosted an international meeting in Beijing October 10 and 11 that promoted increased economic development and tourism as appropriate measures to ensure the preservation and development of Tibetan culture, according to reports by state-run news media. About 120 experts, scholars, and celebrities from China, Hong Kong, and more than 10 other countries, attended the China Tibetan Culture Forum, according to an October 10 China Tibet Information Center (CTIC) report. The Forum was sponsored by the China Association for Preservation and Development of Tibetan Culture (CAPDTC).

A report released by the Tibet Information Network (TIN) on January 20, 2005, documents a sharp decline in the employment of Tibetans in government-run services and companies in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) since 2000. The report bases observations on official Chinese statistics on employment for the years 2000-2003. TIN explains that the report covers the category, "staff and workers," which, in the context of official statistics, refers to "government cadres (officials) and their subordinates; teachers, doctors, nurses, and others working in social services; managers, professionals and workers in urban and township and village enterprises, whether state-owned, collectively-owned, privately-owned or owned by foreigners; the formally urban self-employed and foreigners working in any of the above units."

Rails for the Qinghai-Tibet railroad were laid at 16,641 feet (5,072 meters), the highest elevation that the railway will reach, on August 24, according to a Xinhua report. Vice Minister of Railways Sun Yongfu acknowledged that laying the tracks at Qinghai's Tanggula Pass was "a tough part" of the project. High altitude and frigid conditions pose "a major challenge," according to La Youyu, deputy director-general of the project's headquarters. He said that nearly 300 miles of track cross frozen earth that is "vulnerable to climate change" and can thaw during summer and "distend the railway base in winter." Railway design incorporates measures that include "heat preservation, slope protection, and roadbed ventilation in frozen earth areas" in order to "avoid possible dangers," La said.