【2010.7.22 法新社】China forces committed Tibet rights abuses: group（外一则）

rhapsody

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2010 ... nrestrightssecurity

BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese security forces brutally beat and even shot dead some protesters during unrest in Tibet in 2008, and tortured many in the subsequent crackdown, Human Rights Watch said in a report Thursday.

The New York-based organisation said it had based its findings on interviews with more than 200 Tibetan refugees and other witnesses between March 2008 and April 2010, as well as official information.

"Dozens of eyewitness testimonies and the government?s own sources show clearly the official willingness to use lethal force against unarmed protesters," said Sophie Richardson, the group's Asia advocacy director.

"This report decisively refutes the Chinese government?s claim that it handled the protests in line with international standards and domestic laws," she said, calling for a Chinese and international probe.

China's government did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

The unrest began on March 10, 2008 with a string of peaceful protests marking the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule that forced the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, to flee into exile.

The demonstrations in Tibet's capital Lhasa later descended into violence and spread to neighbouring areas with significant Tibetan populations.

China -- which insists it adhered to international practices when dealing with the protests -- says 21 people were killed by rioters during the turmoil.

Exiled groups, for their part, say more than 200 Tibetans died -- most of them at the hands of Chinese security forces.

"I can tell you as a responsible official that guns were absolutely not fired," Qiangba Puncog, Tibet's governor at the time, said three days after the Lhasa violence.

But according to the HRW report, witnesses say lethal force was used to disperse demonstrators on March 14 on several occasions, although restraint was used at other times.

"When the soldiers showed up, they threw tear gas... Then there was indiscriminate shooting and we saw two people shot dead in front of us," one Tibetan protester told HRW.

"One died in the doorway of the Mentsikhang (outpatient department of the Tibetan hospital)... That day the hospitals had been ordered not to help anyone."

Other witnesses told stories of fatal shootings -- including at least one innocent bystander who was killed -- in Lhasa and in surrounding Tibetan areas.

The state-run Xinhua news agency acknowledged two shooting incidents -- one where it said police shot four people in "self-defence", and another in which security forces had to fire warning shots.

The HRW report also said some peaceful protests that started on March 10 were broken up with force, with one witness describing police hitting monks and lay-people with electric batons.

According to the report, the government has acknowledged detaining at least 3,300 people over the unrest in Tibetan areas.

Witnesses told HRW of regular beatings and the use of torture to extract confessions.

In one example, Nechung, a 38-year-old mother of four, was detained for eight days in March 2008 for allegedly tearing down the signboard of the police station in Aba, a Tibetan area in Sichuan province, the report said.

When she was freed, "she was unable to speak or eat without vomiting, had bruises on her body and difficulty breathing".

Nechung died 22 days later, it added.

According to the relative of one Tibetan man who was held in three different facilities, detainees at one place near Lhasa had their hands tied behind their backs and were made to kneel with their heads on their knees.

"When they leaned or fell over they were beaten and forced to resume their position. This went on for several days," the relative said.

HRW called on the Chinese government to investigate the protests and their aftermath, and open the region to media and international monitors.

"The need for an international investigation into the situation in Tibet is as great as ever," Richardson said.

"Abuses by security forces are unlikely to quell, and may even aggravate, the longstanding grievances that prompted the protests in the first place."

rhapsody

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100 ... _tibet_rights_group

BEIJING – Chinese security forces fired indiscriminately on Tibetan protesters in 2008 and beat and kicked others until they lay motionless on the ground, a rights group said in a report citing witnesses to clashes in which the government claims it acted with restraint.

The Human Rights Watch report released Thursday gives a detailed examination — based on rare eyewitness accounts — of China's crackdown on the broadest anti-government uprising the country has faced from Tibetans in nearly 50 years.

Riots started in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and then spread to communities across China's west.

Since the unrest, Beijing has sought to suppress accounts of rights abuses. It has flooded the region with troops, put Tibetans under tighter scrutiny, reduced the flow of international tourists and allowed in only a few foreign reporters under government escort.

Among the report's findings: Witnesses say on March 14, 2008, security forces in Lhasa opened fire on protesters near the Barkhor, the heart of the old city. They say that at several rallies, security forces also hit demonstrators with batons and rifle butts until they were no longer moving. As protests spread across the Tibetan plateau, security forces shot at secondary school students headed to a demonstration and at monks and civilians marching toward government buildings.

The 73-page report says security forces also tortured protesters and others during arrests and in detention by beating them and depriving them of food and sanitary conditions. It points out that hundreds of Tibetans arrested in the crackdown remain unaccounted for.

The Chinese government had no immediate comment. In the past, the government has blamed the riots on Tibetan separatists organized and instigated by supporters of the exiled Dalai Lama. The supporters have denied it.

The 2008 uprising started with several days of anti-government protests by Buddhist monks in Lhasa and then turned into riots, with Tibetans attacking Chinese-owned shops and homes. China has said 22 people died in the Lhasa riots. Overseas Tibet supporters say many times that number have been killed in protests and the ensuing security crackdown.

To compile its account, New York-based Human Rights Watch said its researchers interviewed 203 Tibetan refugees and visitors outside China between March 2008 and April 2010.

"Over the past two years, security forces acted in a way that is completely disproportionate to the actual threat to public order," said Nicholas Bequelin, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. "The Chinese government could do something about it. This is not about their sovereignty in Tibet, this is about how their security forces behave."

The report investigates cases in which security forces shot at demonstrators in Lhasa and in the Tibetan areas of Aba and Ganzi in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

It cites a 24-year-old Tibetan woman who was near the Barkhor Square and said protesters roamed freely on March 14 until the afternoon, when troops showed up and opened fire.

"When the soldiers showed up later, they threw tear gas. A gas canister hit my leg and I couldn't walk any more," the report quoted the woman as saying. "Then there was indiscriminate shooting and we saw two people shot dead in front of us."

A 33-year-old monk from a monastery west of Lhasa said he was beaten with clubs and sticks by guards at detention facilities where he was held, and beaten again, with sand-filled rubber tubes, when sentenced to a year in a labor camp.

連長

又是这种老论调。
能不能新鲜一点？

連長

89年发生颜色革命，西方媒体说军警开枪镇压。
08年西藏骚乱，西方媒体又说军警开枪镇压。

从08年的骚乱可以看出，政府的态度：89年的颜色革命和08年的骚乱是一样的。

云上的日子

89年发生颜色革命，西方媒体说军警开枪镇压。
08年西藏骚乱，西方媒体又说军警开枪镇压。

从08年的骚乱可 ...
連長 发表于 2010-7-22 13:40

    他们就是这么看的。还有人对我说89动乱能和欧洲中世纪黑暗相比。