Cyber Controls Tightened in Tibet

Chinese authorities block information flows and watch for politically sensitive content. Bilderberg Young Tibetans among patrons of an Internet café in Rangtang township in China's Sichuan province Chinese authorities in Tibet have set up new controls on the flow of information online, as challenges to Beijing’s rule in Tibetan areas begin to spread from western Chinese provinces to Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa, sources say. At the same time, sources said, authorities have begun a new program of forced denunciations of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama accompanied by the granting of public awards to “law-abiding” monks and nuns. The moves came before the self-immolation Sunday of two young Tibetan men in front of Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple—the first self-immolation protests reported in the Tibetan capital, resulting in a security clampdown. Nearly all the 35 previous self-immolations by Tibetans pushing for an end to Beijing's rule and the return of the Dalai Lama have been in Tibetan-populated regions of western China. In controlling the flow of information to Tibet, authorities have been especially anxious to prevent the spread of self-immolation protests from those areas. Following a meeting on April 20, the Lhasa branch of China’s Public Security Bureau (PSB) created a special unit to monitor the online activities of Tibetans living in the Tibet Autonomous Region, a Tibetan source in Nepal said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The main purpose of this new wing of the Lhasa PSB is to monitor and curb the online activities of Tibetans, prevent online access to sensitive information, and stop the online dissemination of news and information.” Staffed by computer experts, teachers, and handwriting experts, the new unit—called the PSB Public Information Network Security Monitor—will also watch the online publications and activities of Tibetans living in exile, the source said. 'Loyalty' awards Meanwhile, Chinese authorities in Tibet have begun a campaign of presenting awards to Buddhist monks and nuns deemed loyal to the Chinese state, sources say. “They call the monks and nuns from monasteries and nunneries around Lhasa to meetings and force them to sign or place their fingerprint on statements renouncing ‘separatism’ and the Dalai Lama,” a Tibetan in Lhasa said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The Chinese authorities apply forceful pressure to the monks and nuns until they give in and sign, and after obtaining these signatures under coercion, the authorities then exhibit those monks and nuns on national television,” he said. “They are surrounded on all sides by officials, but at the conclusion of the meeting when reporters ask them about their love for China, they don’t say a word,” he said. Speaking in an interview, Columbia University Tibet scholar Robbie Barnett said that following a first distribution at the end of April, the giving of awards to individual monks and nuns is being presented as “something that will happen repeatedly.” “It’s part of the instructions that have been given as part of a comprehensive monastery management system.” The system includes a variety of incentives, Barnett said. “[But] one ultimate reward is that a monastery that has achieved what seems to be an acceptable level of proven ‘patriotism’ is allowed to have its own ‘democratic management committee’ without a central supervising committee of Chinese cadres,” he said. Source Credit: RFA

Two Monks Self-Immolate in Tibetan Capital

BEIJING — Two men set fire to themselves Sunday outside the holiest temple of Tibetan Buddhism in the center of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and one died, according to Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency. The act was apparently in protest of Chinese rule over Tibet, and it signaled that the wave of self-immolations that had occurred in eastern Tibet had spread to the capital.

The self-immolations took place outside the Jokhang Temple, during the holy month known as Saga Dawa, when followers of Tibetan Buddhism celebrate the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha. The self-immolations were the most significant act of protest to take place in Lhasa since the uprising in 2008, when security forces clamped down on rioters and protesters and kept Lhasa in a state of permanent lockdown afterward, particularly in the central market area known as the Barkhor. The Jokhang is a pilgrimage destination that lies at the area’s heart.

The fact that the self-immolations took place in Lhasa, and under such tight security, underscores the widening discontent over Chinese rule, a phenomenon apparent since 2008, and the depth of frustration among many Tibetans. At least 36 people in Tibetan regions of China have set themselves on fire since March 2011, when a monk named Phuntsog from Kirti Monastery self-immolated in the town of Ngaba, in a Tibetan area of Sichuan Province.

Xinhua identified the self-immolators in Lhasa as Dargye, from Aba County, the Chinese name for Ngaba, and Tobgye Tseten, from Xiahe County, or Labrang in Tibetan, the seat of the famous Labrang Monastery and also a locus of protests against Chinese rule. Both counties are in the region of eastern Tibet that is traditionally known as Amdo, and that forms the borderland where the ethnic Tibetan and ethnic Han worlds have overlapped. The Han rule China, and many Tibetans resent their policies in Tibet and their migrations into Tibetan regions for work and business opportunities.

As a result of the self-immolations, Tobgye Tseten died, while Dargye had serious injuries but was in stable condition and able to talk, Xinhua reported. The act took place at 2:16 p.m. outside the Jokhang.

“They were a continuation of the self-immolations in other Tibetan areas, and these acts were all aimed at separating Tibet from China,” said Hao Peng, secretary of the Communist Party’s political and legal affairs committee in the Tibet Autonomous Region, which includes Lhasa and central Tibet, according to Xinhua.

Harriet Beaumont, a spokeswoman for Free Tibet, an advocacy group, identified the man who died as Dorje Tseten, 19, from Bhora in Labrang County. She said contacts had told Free Tibet that the two men rented a hotel room at 1 p.m. Sunday in the Jokhang area and set out from the hotel at 2:15 to commit self-immolation. They shouted three times outside the Jokhang, but it was not immediately clear what they had yelled, Ms. Beaumont said. She added that security officers had arbitrarily detained Tibetans afterward, especially those from Ngaba County.

A man who answered the telephone at the Yarlung Tsangpo Hotel in Lhasa said security in the city had been tightened. The man, who gave his name as Mr. Liu, said it was unclear whether the additional security forces were regular police or units of the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary force usually used to quell riots and maintain security in the restive ethnic regions of western China.

Robert J. Barnett, a scholar of modern Tibet at Columbia University, said a Tibetan in Lhasa had told him the city was now in a “boiling situation” following the self-immolations.

“We’re now seeing self-immolations that seem to be political expressions that are in sympathy with the core incidents that happened earlier,” Mr. Barnett said. “The Chinese officials are really worried about protests that are trans-local, driven by an idea, a political goal.”

By contrast, he said, the self-immolations by Phuntsog and others that had taken place in Ngaba were largely in reaction to severe security clampdowns that had taken place at Kirti Monastery following the 2008 uprising.

Ngaba has been the epicenter of the self-immolations, but Tibetans have now set themselves on fire all across the vast Tibetan plateau. Most have been members of the clergy. Before the self-immolations in Lhasa, there had been one act of self-immolation in the Tibet Autonomous Region. That was by a layman in the eastern area known as Chamdo.

The Jokhang has been a focal point of protests in Lhasa since at least the 1980s. The rioting in Lhasa in March 2008 began in the surrounding Barkhor market area. After security forces clamped down, Chinese officials brought a group of foreign journalists to visit Lhasa, only to have 30 monks inside the Jokhang start yelling “Tibet is not free!” in front of the journalists and defend the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader vilified by Chinese leaders.

The self-immolations in Lhasa were first reported by Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, which have contact with Tibetans in the western regions. Voice of America reported that the two men worked at a restaurant in Lhasa called Nyima Ling. Radio Free Asia said the two men were monks who were taken away in security vehicles within 15 minutes of setting themselves on fire.

In March, President Hu Jintao, who once ordered crackdowns on protests as the party chief in central Tibet, told the Tibet delegation to the National People’s Congress in Beijing that they must exert “continuous effort in sustaining social harmony and stability.” Mr. Hu’s talk has been widely cited and reprinted in official news media, including in the Tibetan-language media, and has set the tone for the state of security in Tibet since the spring. Official news reports say Chen Quanguo, the current party chief of Tibet, repeated Mr. Hu’s words in public meetings and said officials will “persist in the thought that stability overrides all.”

Source Credit: The New York Times

Signature campaign in Tibet

Monks in Tibetan monasteries are being encouraged to join a signature campaign “to express love for the country and religion”, Chinese state media said on Tuesday even as the government announced a string of welfare measures aimed at addressing concerns in the wake of self-immolation protests. Around 1,000 monks and nuns in monasteries in the Shannan prefecture of the Tibet Autonomous Region signed their names on Monday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. They resolved to “comply with law and dharma, choose right from wrong, advocate harmony and pursue peace”. The campaign comes after officials put in place new measures to govern the management of monasteries in TAR and Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan, including committees to better regulate activities and to administer patriotic education. The government has also announced a slew of welfare measures following the more than 30 self-immolation protests over the past year. On Tuesday, the first regional bank in TAR opened its doors to improve access to loans for small and medium-scale businesses, state media reported. The move to set up a Bank of Tibet was sanctioned by a Central government work conference in 2010 which called for measures to “maintain stability and peace” and boost development. Last week, a top official of the TAR regional government blamed the self-immolations on “a political scheme”, accusing the Dalai Lama and his supporters of being behind the incidents. Qiangba Puncog, a member of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress and former chairman of TAR, said no self-immolations had been reported in TAR, with the incidents taking place in Tibetan areas in Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai. “Any one with reason could tell whether [the self-immolations] were the result of a lack of religious freedom in the Tibet Autonomous Region, or that of a political scheme to internationalise the Tibet issue,” he was quoted as saying by Xinhua. He also blamed the Dalai Lama, saying that “[the Dalai Lama clique] is responsible for the losses of lives.” While the Dalai Lama has stressed that he did not encourage the protests and has blamed repressive Chinese policies for triggering the incidents, he has also expressed sympathy with the protesters and chose not to answer a question last week when asked if monks should stop setting themselves on fire. Source credit: The Hindu

Dalai Lama: China may have plotted to poison me

LONDON (Reuters) - Tibet's Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, fears China may have plotted to kill him by training female agents with poison in their hair and on their clothing, he told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

China has ruled Tibet since 1950, and the Chinese government has repeatedly accused exiled Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, of stoking dissent against its rule. The spiritual leader fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising.



Last year he was warned that Chinese agents had trained Tibetan women to kill him, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Asked about the assassination plot, the Dalai Lama said:

"Oh yes. In the hair poisoned and scarf poisoned. So they say they're sick, supposed to seek blessing from me. And my hand touch. That kind of information we received."

"I don't know whether 100 percent correct or not. There is no possibility to cross-check," he added, speaking in broken English in a video posted on the Telegraph's website.

The Dalai Lama's comments follow a spate of self-immolations and protests against Chinese control in the country's Tibetan-populated areas, prompting the rulingCommunist Party to tighten security.

The 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner was expected to visit London's St Paul's Cathedral on Monday to receive the $1.7 million Templeton Prize for his work affirming the spiritual dimension of life.


source credit: Chicago Tribune News

'BEASTIE BOYS' MCA Dead at 47

11:30 AM PT -- MCA's publicist just released a statement, writing, "It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam 'MCA' Yauch ... passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer. He was 47 years old." 1:00 PM PT -- A rep for the Dalai Lama -- of whom MCA was a huge supporter -- tells TMZ, "Adam had helped us raise awareness on the plight of the Tibetan people by organizing various freedom Tibet concerts and he will be remembered by his holiness and the Tibetan people." Adam met several times with the Dalai Lama while he was sick -- most recently last July, when the Dalai Lama blessed him. Source credit: TMZ