A listing of the top news developments in and around Tibet during the previous week.

 

Five Tibetans with wounds after shooting denied medical treatment: deployment of military leads to mass detentions in village in Kham

Wangdak

Wangdak, the respected local leader whose shooting led to the demonstrations.

Troops opened fire on unarmed Tibetans protesting against the detention of a popular village leader on August 12 in Loshu, Kardze, the Tibetan area of Kham.

This week (August 17) a Tibetan named by sources as Lo Palsang from Shugba village, who had been wounded in the demonstration, was detained and committed suicide in custody. While full details of the circumstances are not known due to tight restrictions on information flow, according to Tibetan sources in contact with Tibetans in the area, his suicide was intended as a protest against crackdown. Radio Free Asia cited Demay Gyaltsen, a Tibetan living in exile in India, saying that Lo Palsang had “killed himself in detention in protest against the torture by the Chinese authorities.” New updates show that so far a total of 5 Tibetans have died in the detention center.

According to other Tibetan sources, a large deployment of troops arrived in Shugba village and detained a high number of Tibetan males aged above around 13. For more details please see the full ICT report here.

Foreign dignitaries endorse CCP Tibet policy and attacks on Dalai Lama at Lhasa conference Foreign dignitaries endorse CCP Tibet policy and attacks on Dalai Lama at Lhasa conference

Lhasa Consensus

The “Lhasa Consensus”


A prominent British Lord, an Austrian Parliamentarian and the director of the Confucius Institute in Vienna were among foreigners to attend a conference in Lhasa this week that endorsed hostile propaganda against the Dalai Lama and asserted the “happiness” of Tibetans under Chinese rule.

The Chinese state media circulated a ‘Lhasa Consensus’ about the happiness and satisfaction of Tibetans on August 14 as news emerged that paramilitary troops opened fire on unarmed Tibetans in eastern Tibet two days prior, seriously injuring at least ten Tibetans.

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) has raised questions with individual foreign participants of the conference in Lhasa on August 12-13. Kai Mueller, Executive Director of ICT-Germany said: “We are appalled by the participation of foreign individuals in a conference which aims to distort the truth about the situation in Tibet and completely ignores the assessments of UN representatives, governments and independent NGOs on the situation in Tibet. It will do no favors to the credibility of those participating, and it raises serious questions for the political parties and academic institutions that the foreign delegates represent.” The full ICT report can be viewed here.

Chinese Academy of Sciences: Climate change threatens Tibet

Citing a comprehensive study recently completed in Tibet, an article in Nature laid out some of the challenges facing Tibet as the Earth warms. “The region is getting hotter, wetter and more polluted, threatening its fragile ecosystems and those who rely on them,” it found, while giving statistics showing that the Tibetan plateau is warming far faster than the global average. The study also found that urbanization, desertification, and mining pose great threats to the fragile Tibetan environment.

“Myths of Social Cohesion” in China

Reporting from Xinjiang, New York Times reporter Andrew Jacobs writes about the false narratives put forward by the Party when trying to justify Chinese rule over Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Mongols. Steering the discussion away from subjugation and domination, Beijing instead rewrites history to contain “story lines that portray Uighurs, Mongolians, Tibetans and other groups as contented members of an extended family whose traditional homelands have long been part of the Chinese nation.” Jacobs, who recently reported from Jyekundo in Tibet, uses the story of Princess Wencheng as an example of Chinese narratives painting Tibetans as “savages” in need of Chinese civilization.

Rowell Fund for Tibet to receive applications for 2014-2015 Grant Cycle

The Rowell Fund for Tibet seeks to support Tibetans who can make a significant contribution to their community and/or an international audience in the fields of visual arts and media, and environmental and women’s rights.

The application form for the Rowell Fund for Tibet’s 2014-2015 grant is now available for download. Application materials will be accepted from September 1 to September 30, 2014 (midnight Eastern Standard Time).

For more information, and to apply for a grant, please see the ICT site.