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Indian supporters on nationwide “Free Tibet” yatra

Indian supporters led by Dr Mahesh Yadav, Founder of Mahatma Gandhi Tibet Freedom Movement concerned to-Global Amity Foundation, are on a nationwide 50-day “Free Tibet” campaign.

“Free Tibet, Security of India, and Violence and Terrorism Free World” are the message of this long countrywide “Jago Bharat Jago Tibet Yatra”, started from the Indian city of Bhopal. The yatra, covering India’s twelve biggest states, include regular press conferences, public seminars and discussions on the issues all along its way.

According to the organizers, various programs have been organized in different rural and urban cities like Bhopal, Mandideep, Obeidullahganj, Budhni, Hoshangabad and Itarsi as part of the yatra to educate Indians about the issue of Tibet and accordingly garnering their support for the cause.

MGTFM Free Tibet and Peace Activists, Dr. Manmohan Kurapa and Siddharth Bhatia are taking part in the Yatra.“Indian public, political leaders and media are supporting and appreciating this ‘Jago Bharat Jago Tibet Yatra,” says Dr Yadav, while commencing the yatra on Saturday at Rajghat, in New Delhi.

While addressing media in Delhi, Dr. Yadav urged United Nations, Government of India, world leaders and, all Noble Peace Laureates and Human Rights and Peace-award winners to support the exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Tibetan people in their struggle to “save Tibet for world peace”."If we are serious over the rights of animals, and talk about human rights, then why are we silent on the issue of Tibet?” Dr Yadav says.

He warns that failure to support and help fulfill the peaceful and non-violent struggle of Dalai Lama will endanger world peace in the long run.Indian Free Tibet and peace activists flag off a 50-day nationwide “Jago Bharat Jago Tibet Yatra” in Bhopal.

In

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=23533&article=Indian+supporters+on+nationwide+%e2%80%9cFree+Tibet%e2%80%9d+yatra

Ensinamento com Tulku Pema Wangyal Rinpoche

É com enorme prazer que vos informamos da presença de Tulku Pema Wangyal Rinpoche em Lisboa, para um dia de Ensinamentos PúblicoS.

Tema: ”Desenvolver a Paz Interior”

Data: Hoje, 28 de Dezembro, pelas 16h

Local: Sala Mediterrânica do hotel Marriott em Lisboa (Av. dos Combatentes nº 45)

A contribuição será de 10 euros, não sendo necessária inscrição prévia.

TAKLUNG TSETRÜL PEMA WANGYAL RINPOCHE

Rinpoche foi reconhecido pelo 16º Karmapa e outros Mestres tibetanos como o 8º Tsétrül Rinpoche, lider da tradição Taklung Kagyu.Nasceu no Tibete e desde a infância estudou com os mais eminentes mestres budistas do nosso tempo, tal como Kangyur Rinpoche (seu pai), Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche e o Karmapa. Desde a sua chegada à Europa em 1975, o Rinpoche estabeleceu na Dordgone (França), vários centros de retiros, e organiza regularmente sessões de formação com vários dos maiores Lamas tibetanos deste século de todas as 4 escolas budistas.Em todas as suas actividades o seu objectivo principal é o de partilhar a sabedoria e técnicas das autênticas tradições budistas com todos aqueles que a queiram estudar e praticar.

China relocates over 300,000 Tibetans in 2008: Report

Chinese government has moved some 300,000 Tibetan farmers and herders from 57,800 families into permanent brick houses in Tibet this year, under a government-led program, Chinese state-controlled news agency said Saturday, a controversial practice rights groups say has been marked by gross abuses.

“Another 312,000 farmers and herders from 57,800 families moved from shanty homes into new solid brick houses in Tibet this year under a government-subsidized housing project aimed at improving living conditions,” China’s Xinhua news agency reported Saturday.

"I only spent 18,000 yuan (2,647 U.S. dollars) on the construction of my new house, and the rest, totaling more than 40,000 yuan, were all granted by the government," the report cited Drolkar, a resident of the Yamda Village near Tibetan capital Lhasa as saying.

The report said, like Drolkar, all 208 families in the village moved into new brick houses this year.

To date, 860,000 farmers and herders from 170,000 families have moved into the new houses, the government statistics show, the report said.

The report said the five-year housing project was started in 2006 with a plan to build “solid homes for 220,000 families.”

Once finished, it would mean housing for 80 percent of the region's farmers and herders by the end of 2010, the report said of the controversial resettlement program that recalls the socialist engineering of an earlier era.

China calls the project the "comfortable housing program," and its stated aim is to present a more modern face for Tibet, which China has controlled since 1950 after sending troops to occupy the region.

It claims that the new housing on main roads, sometimes only a mile from previous homes, will enable small farmers and herders to have access to schools and jobs, as well as for the sake of ecological conservation and for the health of the farmers and herders.

Saying Tibet has been experiencing double-digit economic growth for the last 16 years; the Xinhua report quoted a communist official as saying: “Farmers and herds people re the beneficiaries of the economic development" under China.

Independent reports however, indicate otherwise.

China’s broader aim seems to be remaking Tibet - a region with its own culture, language and religious traditions - in order to have firmer political control over its population.

Forceful resettlement of nomadic Tibetans in Tibet and in adjacent ethnic Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces actually began way back in 2000 and have taken place more intensively since 2003.

Observers say the massive mass relocation is linked to Beijing's effort, launched in 1999, to develop China's poor, restive west and bind it to the bustling east. Since then, human rights groups say, China has also been forcing nomadic Tibetan herders to settle in towns to clear land for development, while leaving many unable to earn living.

To prepare for an influx of millions of tourists in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the resettlement drive was more vigorously implemented across the Tibetan plateau.

Ahead of the Beijing Olympics, Chinese state media reported of increasing relocation of nomadic herdsmen in Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) into fixed residences, but said they were done so to help protect the environment and boost their living standards.

Between 2006 and 2007 alone, Chinese government relocated some 250,000 Tibetan farmers and herders, nearly one-tenth of the population, to resettle to new "socialist villages" from scattered rural hamlets. Reports show they were often ordered to build new housing largely at their own expense and without their consent.In doing so, these Tibetan nomads have been forced to abandon their traditional lifestyles with many driven to frustration and despair, unable to cope up with the pressures of earning their livelihood through means alien to their traditions and upbringing.

Also resettlement often involve the slaughter of animals belonging to the mostly nomadic herders, relocation to poorly built accommodation and inability to find work due to lack of skills, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its June 2007 report.

Others are forcibly evicted to make room for public works projects, like dams and roads, the group said in the report.

China says its presence in Tibet has resulted in modernization of the predominantly Buddhist Himalayan country.

Critics rubbish the claim and say modernisation in Tibet has been crushingly imposed by the Chinese authorities along with draconian measures that restrict freedom of expression, freedom to follow a religion of choice and curtailment of opportunity.

While pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into road-building and development projects in Tibet, China is maintaining a large military presence and keeping close tabs on the citizenry through a vast security apparatus of cameras and informants on urban streets and in the monasteries to contain its tight grip on the restive Himalayan region and to quell any impending demonstrations, like the one that broke out in March, against its rule.

Xinhua’s latest report on relocation of Tibetans appears to be part of a major propaganda drive on Tibet launched by China last month to highlight what it calls the “social and economic development of Tibet over the last 30 years.”

Chinese media report last month said starting November 5th China’s top nine state-run media, including the official Xinhua news agency and People's Daily Online, will start “a series report on the last 30 years of Tibet after the reform and opening-up policy in China.”

The massive state-sponsored drive was described as a move to “help international readers to better understand Tibet”. The report said the purposeful coverage activity on Tibet would be jointly sponsored by the Publicity Department of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and the Publicity Department of the Party Committee of TAR, with the network sponsorship of China Tibet Information Centre.

In
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=23524&article=China+relocates+over+300%2c000+Tibetans+in+2008%3a+Report

A coordinated international response might soften Chinese intransigence over Tibet

After years of talking to Tibetan exiles about conditions in their homeland, Chinese officials have made it clear that they were not serious about it. Unless the international community adopts a coordinated position on Tibet¹s autonomy this may not bode well for either Tibet or for China¹s relations with the world.

During the March uprising in Tibet, Chinese officials were pushed to reopen six-year old discussions with the Dalai Lama. Deng Xiaoping had years ago said "anything was negotiable except independence," and Tibetans had long ago abandoned their earlier claim to independence in favor of autonomy. With no progress after six rounds of discussions, Deng¹s words rang hollow and the Dalai Lama had largely given up on Beijing. The tragic March crackdown moved him to try again in talks in May, July and November. After the Olympics, however, the Chinese remained indifferent and the talks broke down. In the past couple week, Chinese public pressure to stop European leaders from meeting the Dalai Lama has created a problem that will surely not go away. Though European leaders ignored such pressure this time, the international community needs to develop a coordinated response to reject such bullying and encourage a Chinese rethink.

Chinese indifference was on display in the recent breakdown. After a July Chinese request that Tibetans outline under the PRC constitution the autonomy they seek, Tibetan representatives produced a "Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People." The memorandum elaborates Tibetan "aspirations" for autonomy in 11 policy areas, including language, culture, religion, education, environmental protection, utilization of natural resources, economic development and trade, public health, public security, population migration and cultural, educational and religious exchanges with other countries. All of these are covered by existing unfulfilled national ethnic autonomy policies enacted under Article 4 of the PRC Constitution, except those relating to public security, migration and external exchanges, which appear instead to track the Article 31 "one country, two systems" Hong Kong formula.

The Chinese government has long refused to apply Article 31 to Tibet, though the language of the article offers no justification for this. Such model is believed to have been fashioned after the failed 1950 Sino-Tibetan "17-point Agreement," under which China originally committed to Tibetan autonomy. Though a few outside critics have criticized the Tibetan for demanding too much, no reason is offered as to why they should accept less than genuine autonomy. Because of China¹s refusal to provide any significant degree of autonomy under its national ethnic minority laws, Tibetans have proposed a hybrid combining elements of both formulas.

Similar to Hong Kong, their proposal includes a specification that local laws within the scope of autonomy not be subject to central approval ­ as now required in minority areas ­ and that the terms of their agreement with the Central Government not be subject to the Central Government¹s unilateral amendment. They further seek Hong Kong ­style control over immigration into the Tibetan areas and local public security, as well as control over external relations in non-sensitive commercial and cultural areas. Such autonomy is typically expected for indigenous peoples under international practice, as is spelled out in the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Tibetans have also proposed to unify contiguous Tibetan areas. Chinese officials frequently emphasize that this would constitute one quarter of the landmass of the present day PRC. These large, mostly mountainous, and often arid areas are in fact already designated as Tibetan areas by the PRC ­being divided into 13 contiguous areas instead of one. This proposal, like all others, is subject to negotiation, which China has so far refused.

To everyone¹s dismay, the Tibetan memorandum only met with Beijing's derision and became the basis for the worldwide campaign of isolation. It seems the discussions were only designed to smoke out and block Tibetan aspirations. In the Chinese official statement issued on November 10, 2008, the Tibetan request for "genuine autonomy" is treated as a request for "a high degree of autonomy," as promised to Hong Kong. China accuses Tibetans, in seeking such "high degree of autonomy," of seeking "half-independence" and "covert independence." No explanation is given why the exact same language applied to Hong Kong means only autonomy.

The Tibetans are further accused of continuing to "collude with such dregs as 'democracy activists', 'falunkun (falun gong) elements' and 'Eastern Turkistan terrorists,'" though no evidence of this is given. In seeking control over Chinese migration into Tibet, the Dalai Lama is accused of "ethnic cleansing."The exile government is characterized as a "small group of splittists," and the meetings are cast as private meetings designed to persuade the Dalai Lama to "give up his splitting activities." The statement declared, "We never discussed the so-called ŒTibet issue" and will "never make a concession."

Despite China¹s dismissive attitude, a large mid-November Tibetan exile meeting in Dharamsala, India, decided to continue efforts at genuine autonomy ­ determined to suspend this fruitless series of talks and find more effective nonviolent strategies.

That this problem will persist is made clear by recent Chinese bullying of foreign leaders not to meet the Dalai Lama. To dissuade French and current EU President Nicolas Sarkozy from meeting the Dalai Lama, China called off a December Sino-EU summit slated to discuss the financial crisis. Similar bullying tactics have targeted Germany, the UK, the US, the Vatican, Poland, India and the Czech Republic ­ the latter being next scheduled to take up the EU presidency.

As with the fiasco over the Olympic torch last summer, Chinese bloggers have again called for a boycott of French goods. While Chinese officials cautioned people to react ³calmly,² their tendency to manipulate such nationalist outbursts is transparent. They may, however, be cool to a Chinese boycott of French goods, given the risk that Europeans could react in kind or Tibetans could react by calling for a global boycott of Chinese goods ­ probably a more daunting prospect for the Chinese than for the other side.

The Dalai Lama is clearly winning the battle for hearts and minds in the West. A recent public opinion poll on the popularity of world leaders, commissioned by the International Herald Tribune, found the Dalai Lama was the most respected world leader among Western Europeans and Americans. The Chinese leader languished near the bottom. Perhaps Beijing has not fully considered the cost of their unseemly attacks on this revered Tibetan monk.

Of course, Western business leaders concerned about Chinese trade sanctions stand on the other side, posing a difficult dilemma for Western leaders. Dothey have the moral integrity to meet with the Dalai Lama in the face of China¹s condemnation and possible commercial sanctions?

Coordinated effort by national leaders worldwide may be the only way to cut the cost of such political virtue. This should not be conceived as conspiracy, but rather as a coordinated effort to maintain an open door to the Dalai Lama and reject Chinese efforts to isolate him. This should be accompanied by constructive efforts to help China to better understand its international obligations to this indigenous national minority.

*Michael C. Davis is a professor of law at Chinese University of Hong Kong. For further analysis of this issue see Michael C. Davis, Establishing a Workable Autonomy in Tibet, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol 30, 227-58, May 2008. Click here to read the article: http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/human_rights_quarterly/30.2Tibet.pdf

In

http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/tibet-news/a-coordinated-international-response-might-soften-chinese-intransigence-over-tibet

O GRUPO DE APOIO AO TIBETE DESEJA

A TODOS OS AMIGOS E APOIANTES

UM FELIZ NATAL, EXCELENTE 2009 E...

UM TIBETE LIVRE !

NGO worker sentenced to life imprisonment: harsh sentences signal harder

ICT report, December 22, 2008

A Tibetan who worked for an international public health NGO has beensentenced to life imprisonment and six other Tibetans to long prison terms for allegedly passing on information about the situation in Tibet, according to a report published in the Chinese press. Wangdu, a former Project Officerfor an HIV/AIDS program in Lhasa run by the Australian Burnet Institute, wascharged with “espionage” by the Lhasa City Intermediate People’s Court.Three other Tibetans were sentenced from 10 to 15 years for “providing intelligence” to the “Dalai clique”, including two exile Tibetan NGOs named in the official report, and a second former NGO worker sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.

The sentences are unprecedented in their severity for Tibetans accused of passing on information to people outside Tibet. This new development indicates a harder line approach to blocking news on the current crackdown in Tibet, and also appears to represent a challenge to NGOs working on the plateau. The official report, published in the Lhasa Evening News in Chinese and translated below into English, also underlines Beijing’s view that the Dalai Lama was responsible for the wave of protests against Chinese rule that swept across Tibet from March onwards. Hundreds of Tibetans remain in custody following more than 125 overwhelmingly peaceful protests over asix-month period from March 10. A definitive number of prisoners is not known due to the security crackdown and the Chinese authorities’ efforts to silence Tibetans, including the warning implicit in the sentencing of Wangdu and the six other Tibetans detailed in this report.

The article in the Lhasa Evening News on November 8, translated in full into English below, reported the sentencing of seven Tibetans including former Jokhang monk and health worker Wangdu (Chinese transliteration: Wangdui).Migmar Dhondup (Chinese transliteration: Mima Dunzhu), who also worked foran NGO and is known as a passionate conservationist, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for “espionage”. Both Migmar Dhondup and Wangdu were accused of collecting “intelligence concerning the security and interests of thestate and provid[ing] it to the Dalai clique…prior to and following the‘March 14’ incident”.

The Chinese authorities blame the Dalai Lama and the exile authorities for“inciting” the protests that swept across the Tibetan plateau for several months from March 10 onwards, with exile organizations such as the Tibetan Youth Congress accused by Beijing of being explicitly involved in organizing the protests. This is despite the evidence that the overwhelmingly peaceful protests were spontaneous expressions of deeply-felt resentment against more than 50 years of Chinese rule. The Lhasa Evening News report states that the“crimes” of the four Tibetans prove that the “March 14th incident “was well planned by the Dalai Clique and its ‘Tibetan independence’ separatist forces, and was deliberately created after they had colluded with ‘Tibetan Independence’ elements within Tibet in a well organized and pre-meditated manner.”

Phuntsog Dorjee, a former political prisoner who once worked at the Snowlands Hotel in Lhasa, was sentenced to nine years, and Tsewang Dorjee to eight years. Both were accused of working with Wangdu in order to send information outside Tibet.

The three other Tibetans named in the report were charged with crimes relating to their alleged contact and communication with exile NGOs and the Tibetan government in exile. Yeshi Choedon (Chinese transliteration: YixiQuzhen) was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for espionage after she allegedly provided “intelligence and information harmful to the security and interests of the state to the Dalai clique’s ‘Security Department’.” Sonam Tseten (Chinese: Suolang Cidian) was sentenced to ten years “for the crime of illegally sending intelligence abroad”. The Dharamsala-based NGO Gu ChuSum, which helps former political prisoners, was named as the recipient organization of this information. Sonam Dakpa (Chinese: Suolang Zhaba) wasaccused of being a member of “the Dalai clique’s ‘Tibetan Youth Congress’”and was sentenced to ten years for allegedly sending information abroad.

Since the protests broke out across Tibet on March 10, the Chinese authorities have sought to impose an information blackout and for a period of several months virtually sealed off the plateau from the outside world.Thousands of Tibetans have been detained, with extreme brutality a routine feature of their detention. Some Tibetans are profoundly psychologically disturbed upon release, with others unable to walk or speak, or with brokenor dislocated limbs. There are serious fears for the welfare and safety ofWangdu, Migmar Dhondup, and the five other prisoners now sentenced in Lhasa.Their current whereabouts is unknown.
These latest terms of imprisonment exceed other sentences imposed on Tibetans accused of communicating, or attempting to communicate, information to the outside world. Most recently, a Tibetan female cadre, Norzin Wangmo,was sentenced to five years for speaking to a friend on the phone about thesituation in Tibet. Exact details of the charges are unknown. (See ICTreport, “Disappearances continue across Tibet: Tibetan woman sentenced fortalking on telephone,” ICT, November 19, 2008,http://www.savetibet.org/ .)

In November 2007, two Tibetan men were sentenced to nine and ten years for ‘espionage’ after they were accused of attempting to pass on images and information about a protest by a Tibetan nomad, Runggye Adak. It is notable that these prison sentences were longer than the one imposed on Runggye Adak himself, who was given an eight yearterm after he took to the stage at the Lithang Horse Festival, Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan on August 1, 2007 and called for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet. (Sentencing details in a report by theCongressional-Executive Commission on China,http://www.cecc.gov/pages/virtualAcad/index.phpd?showsingle=101223). Life imprisonment for ‘open-minded, talented’ Tibetan health worker Wangdu.

Forty-one year old Wangdu, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment is a former Jokhang monk from Dechen Township, Taktse County, around 25kilometers east of Lhasa. He previously served eight years in prison after

detention on March 8, 1989, the day martial law took effect in Lhasa afterthree days of protest and rioting. His three-year sentence to ‘reform through labor’ was extended to eight years' imprisonment after he and 10o ther political prisoners signed a petition stating that the 1951 17-PointAgreement was forced on an independent Tibet. According to the TibetanCenter for Human Rights and Democracy, Wangdu was detained again on March14, the day protests and rioting erupted in Lhasa after four days of variousdemonstrations to mark the anniversary of the March 10, 1959 Uprising.
Wangdu, who speaks fluent Chinese and once worked as a guide for Chinese tourists at the Jokhang, is still listed as a member of staff on the website of the Melbourne-based Burnet Institute, one of the leading medical research and public health Institutes in Australia. Wangdu worked on the HIVPrevention in Lhasa Project, which commenced in 2001 with AusAID and BurnetInstitute funding, and aimed to develop resources to be used to educate Tibetans about HIV. A former political prisoner who shared a cell in Tibet Autonomous RegionPrison (Drapchi) and carried out labor with Wangdu in the prison’sgreenhouses during his previous sentence told ICT: “During that time inprison [the early 1990s] I became very close to [Wangdu] and he started learning English with me from [another prisoner]. He is such an open-minded,talented, easy-going guy and got on really well with other prisoners while he was in Drapchi. He is very good at Tibetan literature and painting and Chinese language as well. He used to worry about the new generation in Tibet because they are losing their culture and their language, and he often criticized people for not being interested in anything other than money. The last time I saw him, when we said goodbye to each other, I was very sad.” Migmar Dhondup, who was also arrested in connection with the March 14protests and has been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment, is in his early thirties and also worked for an NGO doing community development work. He is originally from Tingri (Chinese: Dingri), in Shigatse (Chinese: Xigaze),Tibet Autonomous Region. Migmar Dhondup, who speaks fluent English and is very well educated, also used to work as a tour guide.

A full translation of the Lhasa Evening News article on November 8 reporting the sentences follows:
http://www.lasa-eveningnews.com.cn/epaper/uniflows/02/20081108/02_30.htm
November 8, 2008, Lhasa Evening News, p. 2.
Lhasa City Intermediate People’s Court pronounces sentence in four “March 14incident” cases for the crime of endangering state security
Tibet’s Lhasa City Intermediate People’s Court in accordance with the lawand in open court publicly passed sentence in recent days in four “March 14incident” cases for the crime of endangering state security. Criminalresponsibility was pursued in accordance with the law against seven defendants, including Wangdui [Chinese transliteration: 旺堆, Tibetan:Wangdu].
A spokesperson for Lhasa City Intermediate People’s Court said that thefacts of the criminal cases were clear, and that there was solid and ampleevidence to fully prove that the “March 14” serious violent criminal incident that happened in Lhasa and elsewhere was meticulously planned bythe Dalai clique and hostile “Tibetan independence” splittist forces, andthat it was deliberately instigated by means of organized and premeditated communication with “Tibetan independence” elements within the borders.
The open trial at Lhasa City Intermediate People’s Court verified that the defendant Wangdu accepted tasks assigned by the Dalai clique’s “SecurityDepartment” of establishing an underground intelligence network in Lhasa, ofcopying large amounts of CD ROMs with content inciting splitting the nationas well as handbills inciting a “Tibetan people’s uprising”, which theco-defendant Mima Dunzhu (米玛顿珠, Tibetan: Migmar Dhondup] distributed within the borders. Prior to and following the “March 14” incident, they collected intelligence concerning the security and interests of the state and provided it to the Dalai clique. The actions of both people violatedArticle 110 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China,constituting the crime of espionage. The defendants Pingcuo Duoji [PhuntsokDorjee, Chinese transliteration: 平措多吉] and Ciwang Duoji [次旺多吉,Tsewang Dorjee] collected intelligence concerning the security and interestsof the state, and sent it abroad via Wangdu. The actions of both people violated Article 111 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China,constituting the crime of illegally sending intelligence abroad. Of theabove defendants, Wangdui and Pingcuo Duoji are recidivists and should be punished severely in accordance with the law. On October 27, Lhasa CityIntermediate People’s Court sentenced the defendant Wangdui in accordancewith the law to life imprisonment with deprivation of political rights forlife, for the crime of espionage; the defendant Mima Dunzhu was sentenced tofixed term imprisonment of 14 years with deprivation of political rights forfive years, for the crime of espionage; the defendant Pingcuo Duoji was sentenced to fixed term imprisonment of nine years with deprivation ofpolitical rights for five years, for the crime of illegally sendingintelligence abroad; and the defendant Ciwang Duoji was sentenced to eightyears imprisonment with deprivation of political rights for five years, for the crime of illegally sending intelligence abroad.
The defendant Suolang Zhaba [索朗扎巴, Sonam Dakpa] joined the Dalai clique’s “Tibetan Youth Congress” organization, and accepted the task assigned by that organization of collecting a large amount of intelligence concerning the security and interests of the state prior to and following the “March 14” incident, and of sending it to that organization. Such actions violated Article 111 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, constituting the crime of illegally sending intelligence abroad. On October 27, Lhasa City Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Suolang Zhabain accordance with the law to fixed term imprisonment of 10 years with deprivation of political rights for five years, for the crime of illegally sending intelligence abroad.
The defendant Yixi Quzhen [益西曲珍, Yeshi Choedon] accepted tasks assigned by the Dalai clique’s “Security Department”, and received financial aid from the Dalai clique’s “Security Department”, for providing intelligence and information harmful to the security and interests of the state to the Dalaiclique’s “Security Department”. Such actions violated Article 110 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, constituting the crime ofespionage. On November 7, Lhasa City Intermediate People’s Court sentenced the defendant Yeshi Choedon in accordance with the law to fixed term imprisonment of 15 years with deprivation of political rights for five years, for the crime of espionage.
The defendant Suolang Cidian [索朗次点, Sonam Tseten] accepted the taskassigned by the Dalai clique’s “9, 10, 3” [Gu Chu Sum] splittistorganization of collecting a large amount of intelligence concerning the security and interests of the state and sending it to that organization.Such actions violated Article 111 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, constituting the crime of illegally sending intelligence abroad. On November 7, Lhasa City Intermediate People’s Court sentenced the defendant Suolang Cidian in accordance with the law to fixed term imprisonment of 10 years with deprivation of political rights for five years, for the crime of illegally sending intelligence abroad.

China says within rights to block some websites

China's foreign ministry said on Tuesday the country was within its rights to block websites with content illegal under Chinese law, including websites that referred to China and Taiwan as two separate countries.

China regularly blocks sites it finds unsavory, particularly those related to Tibet or critical of the Communist Party.

It considers self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Access to the Chinese-language versions of the BBC, Voice of America and Hong Kong media Ming Pao News and Asiaweek has been blocked since early December, according to a report by Asiaweek this week. They remained blocked on Tuesday.

"We can't deny that some websites continue to have problems that violate Chinese law," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said.

"For instance, if a website refers to 'two Chinas' or refers to mainland China and Taiwan as two independent regions, we believe that violates China's Anti-Seccession Law, as well as other laws," he said.

"We hope that the relevant websites can comply with China's concerns and not do things contrary to Chinese law. This will help establish a good cooperation between China and the relevant countries, as well as China and the relevant websites."

China has the world's greatest number of Internet users, allowing its citizens vastly increased access to information.

In response, the country has set up a team of personnel who police the Internet to remove sensitive content and posts, warn bloggers who cross the line and block access to certain sites.

Asiaweek's first front cover in December features an article on taxi strikes that broke out recently across China. Its latest front cover is a tribute to volunteers during the Sichuan earthquake, which killed about 80,000 people.

In
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4BF2QA20081216

China closing down popular private schools, clinics in Tibet

The authorities in Lhasa and Karze (Chinese: Ganzi) have been monitoring privately run schools and hospitals and had begun shutting down those which were particularly popular with the local Tibetans, worried about their possible political implications, according to the exile Tibetan government’s online information service Tibet.net Dec 12. The campaign aims to hinder those dedicated Tibetans in carrying out welfare projects for the local residents and suspect political motives behind such activities, the report said.

In Karze, a decree was issued on Dec 1, shutting down the most prestigious and recognized educational and health institutions in Karze, including the hospital and school run by Khangsar Kyabgon Tulku, the Lamdag Tulku hospital, and the Karze Intermediary Tibetan language school. It said local Tibetans had appealed to the authorities not to shut down schools and hospitals.

In Tibet’s capital Lhasa, the concerned departments had started monitoring private Tibetan schools, with plans to shut down many of the schools for similar reason, the report said.

In
http://www.tibetanreview.net/news.php?&id=1681