In a May report, Human Rights Watch catalogued nearly 500 arrests across Tibetan parts of China between 2013 and 2015. It concluded that dissent had spread from urban to rural areas. Whereas the vast majority of arrests in the 1980s and 1990s had been of monks and nuns, most of those detained more recently were ordinary people.
Many “had merely exercised their rights to expression and assembly without advocating separatism†— criticizing local officials, for example, or opposing a mining development, the report said.
Yet even relatively mild protests about poor governance are increasingly seen through a political lens and labeled as “criminal acts,†rights groups say. Punishment can be severe.
The incident in Chalong “reflects the unrest and instability in Tibetan society,†said Golog Jigme, a filmmaker and former political prisoner who now lives in exile in Switzerland. “It’s not outsiders or the Dalai Lama stirring things up, it’s social issues.â€
On the evening of Oct. 4, 2015, Tsering Tso had received a phone call from her boyfriend, a lama at the Gertse Dralak monastery in Chalong. He insisted that he was ill and wanted to see her.
Her father gave her a lift, only to find the lama drinking with two policemen. He left her there. The following morning, Tsering Tso’s body was found hanging from a small bridge in the town.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=82695.0