On November 3, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC) held a hearing in Washington, D.C. to discuss the ongoing repression in Tibet. Since January 2011, there have been eleven self-immolations in the region- a startling amount that suggests the ongoing occurrence of serious social problems.

Dalai Lama and CCP Clash Over Reincarnation Stipulations

In traditional Tibetan society, the Dalai Lama is the spiritual and political leader of Tibet. The current Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, for fear of his personal safety after a Tibetan uprising against Han Chinese. In India, he set up a government-in-exile, which has been in operation for 50 years. Since the Dalai Lama’s escape, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has advanced restrictions upon Tibetans’ basic rights, in all aspects of life.

Religious persecution by the Chinese Communist Party has been ongoing since 1949. However, in recent years, controls on religious freedom have been tightened.

The 2009 State Council’s National Human Rights Action Plan seems to show a new stance toward individual rights in China. The action plan condemns religious persecution, detention, and extortion of information by torture, yet these things still happen today. If anything, the CCP is less tolerant of religion.

“Legal Religion”

China's religious policies are contradictory. The National Human Rights Action Plan is supposed to guarantee freedom, but the CCP has laws regarding the illegalities of “evil cults.” What defines that term? The CCP is not forthcoming. They exploit the laws' vagueness in arresting religious practitioners they feel threatened by.

The Chinese Communist Party recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Islam, Daoism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Other religions are illegal, and their practitioners are detained or jailed. Although the five religions mentioned above are recognized, the Religious Affairs Bureau maintains control over them. The RAB has institutions that govern each religion’s affairs. Opposition to the CCP these institutions could result in the faction being declared illegal.

Intolerance Towards Minority Religions

Prior to the 2008 Olympics, protests in Lhasa for religious and autonomous freedom turned into rioting. There have already been 5 self-immolations of Tibetan Buddhists who opposed the Communist Party’s stance on Tibet in 2011 alone. Falun Gong (a mixture of Qigong, Buddhism, and Daoism which was declared a “cult” by the CCP in 1995) practitioners have been “re-educated through labor” in Chinese jails, beaten, starved, and even executed for the past 15 years. Islam in Xinjiang is closely monitored: Government employees in the region cannot practice Islam, and teaching of the Koran in private is illegal. Several branches of Christianity have also been persecuted as “cults”.

Why does the Communist Party take such a hard stance toward religion?

Religion in China is growing rapidly: Currently, there are around 70 million Protestants, 12 million Catholics, 8 million Uighur Muslims, and 2.6 million Tibetan Buddhists, plus the millions of followers who practice “illegal” underground religions. Religion greatly influences its practitioners’ lives. The Communist Party fears religion’s influence on the public surpassing their own, which could result in the public opposing the CCP’s legitimacy and power. This is especially true in places like Xinjiang and Tibet, where religion and ethnicity are intertwined and very different from the Han Chinese perception. If these ethnic values and religions begin to override Communist Party ideals, the CCP’s rule could be jeopardized.

The Effects of Persecution on Society

In 2008, Chen Zhiping was abducted and sentenced to prison for eight years. After her arrest, she was denied a lawyer and her daughter was beaten after requesting court documents on the case. Chen was also attacked in prison and forcibly injected with drugs. Chen’s crime: practicing Falun Gong. Chen is one of many in China who are persecuted for their beliefs. The CCP routinely shrugs off criticisms of its human rights record, justifying its harsh policies with cultural relativism – individual rights are less important in China, because it is a traditionally collective society. However, the CCP's actions toward religious believers affect the society as a whole. When the CCP forces a religious follower into political reform, their entire family is torn apart, and they are persecuted by local cadres or shunned by the community. Persecution of religious followers also disrupts their fellow parish members, causing others to fear and resent the CCP’s policies. When tearing families and communities apart in religious persecution, the CCP is destabilizing its own society, which is what it fears.

Sources:

1.      Amnesty International Report. “Uighur Ethnic Identity Under Threat in China.” 2009.

2.      Falun Dafa Information Center Report. “Chen Zhenping: A Mother Imprisoned, Tortured.” October 20, 2010.

3.      Lai, H.H. “Religious Policies in Post-Totalitarian China: Maintaining Political Monopoly over a Reviving Society.” Journal of Chinese Political Science. 2006. Volume 11, issue 1. Pages 55-57.

4.      Reinstein, Ellen. “Turn the Other Cheek, or Demand an Eye for an Eye? Religious Persecution in China and an Effective Western Response.” Connecticut Journal of International Law. October 1, 2004.

This past Saturday, Tibetan environmentalist Rinchen Samdrup was convicted of "splittism" after leading a campaign against a local policeman involved in poaching. Samdrup was sentenced to five years in prison, and he has been given ten days to appeal the conviction.

Before his arrest, Samdrup was the head of an environmental NGO that operated in the Tibet Autonomous Region near the Sichuan border. The organization worked to fight pollution, poaching, and deforestation with the help of nearby villages, and domestic organizations within China as well as larger international conservation groups lauded Samdrup's work.  Samdrup himself was arrested in August 2009, however.  According to his daughter, Samdrup was subjected to frequent sleep deprivation among other methods of torture while in detention.  And his lawyer, Xia Jun, stated that he had not been allowed to meet with Samdrup since January.

This Thursday Rinchen Samdrup, an award-winning environmentalist from Tibet was scheduled to go on trial for “incitement to split the country,” yet had his trial abruptly canceled on Sunday. He, along with his younger brother Chime Namgyal, were arrested this past August for alleging that officials in eastern Tibet were poaching endangered species. Unlike his brother’s postponement, Chime Namgyal is believed to be serving a 21-month prison sentence in a labor camp on the charges of “harming national security.” A third brother, Karma Samdrup, was arrested on January 3^rd while visiting his brothers in jail. The charges against him date back to a 1998 charge of "dealing in looted antiquities" but these were never mentioned until recently, leading many to believe that it was brought up due to the fact that he had been supporting his brothers’ cause. It is still not clear whether the trial of Richen Samdrup has been cancelled indefinitely due to problems with evidence or if this is simply a postponement; calls to the court for comment went unanswered. Karma Samdrup’s wife, Zhenga Cuomao reported that her husband found his brothers to be in poor health when he visited them, especially Chime who he felt “might not be able to live much longer.” Karma Samdrup’s lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, was optimistic for acquittal but believed that with the current state of affairs his own role in bringing that about would be limited at best. 

After almost two years of detention for sending photos and reports of the March 2008 protests in Tibet, a netizen named Dasher was convicted of “separatism” and sentenced to ten years in late February of this year by an intermediate court in Lhasa, according to Reporters Without Borders.  He is currently detained in Chushur Prison in Lhasa. 

Dasher, a Tibetan who spent part of his life in Nepal, was arrested along with approximately 50 other Tibetans, including his own father, Adri Rinpoche, who was the head of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery before his arrest, following the March 2008 protests.  Due to the heavy level of Chinese internet surveillance in Tibet, many of the accounts, photos, and videos sent out of the province following the March 2008 protests were intercepted and later used as evidence of “separatism” in the arrests and subsequent trials of the “at least 50” Tibetans mentioned in the Reporters Without Borders article.  

U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with the Dalai Lama, despite threats from China that the meeting "would further hurt already strained bilateral relations." The President, who "snubbed" a visit with the Dalai Lama back in late 2009, will meet with His Holiness, although a date still has not been set.

While China regards the Dalai Lama as a "dangerous separatist," the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is known around the world as a "respected religious and cultural leader." The Dalai Lama wants Tibetans to be able to "freely practice their culture, language and religion under China's rule" - conditions that do not currently exist.

To aid in its control of Tibet and the repression of Tibetan human rights, the Chinese government extended its vast Laogai system into Tibet. According to the International Campaign for Tibet, "the Chinese government severely restricts the rights of Tibetans, including the freedoms of speech, press, association, and religion. Tibetan political prisoners endure harsh prison conditions and torture... Since 1949, hundreds of thousands have died as a direct result of China’s policies."

In October 2009, the Dalai Lama visited the Laogai Museum.  Watch his visit below:

Tibetan singer Tashi Dondrup was detained late last week, accused by Chinese authorities of "composing subversive songs."

Dondrup's latest album Torture without Trace, had been banned for its content "expressing nostalgia for the exiled Dalai Lama" and remembering the "anti-Chinese riot" in Lhasa in March 2008. According to the Times (UK), Tashi Dondrup was detained "while in hiding in the western city of Xining, capital of Qinghai province, where he had taken refuge after the authorities banned his music."

Late Sunday evening, the PRC government issued a white paper entitled “China's Ethnic Policy and Common Prosperity and Development of All Ethnic Groups.”  In an all too common attempt to "harmonize" the historical record of the Middle Kingdom, the report details the full economic integration of modern China's 56 nationalities, complete with charts and graphs.

In a strangely Stalinist assertion, the report claims, “The common cultural and psychological characteristics of all ethnic groups in China became increasingly more mature and outstanding.  Today, the Chinese nation has become a name with which all ethnic groups in China identify themselves and to which they give their allegiance.”  The report boldly concludes, “Sixty years of experiences have proved that China’s ethnic policies are correct and effective…”
 
But if China's inter-ethnic relations are in fact “harmonious,” why did the 2008 riots in Tibet and the 2009 riots in East Turkestan happen?  And, if ethnic relations in China are indeed doing so greatly, why would China need to issue a white paper on ethnic policy begin with?