[Buddha-l] Chinese detaining Tibetans

[Dan Lusthaus]

Since nytimes.com now restricts free access (limited number per month 
without a subscription), I am copying in the full article. All that's 
missing are the photos.

Dan
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China Said to Detain Returning Tibetan Pilgrims

The Dalai Lama led the Kalachakra ceremony in January in Bodh Gaya, a town 
in north India where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
By EDWARD WONG
Published: April 7, 2012

DHARAMSALA, India — Hundreds of Tibetans who attended an important Buddhist 
ceremony in January in India have been detained without charge by Chinese 
security officers on their return to Tibet, according to family members and 
friends living in exile in India, international human rights groups and 
officials with the Tibetan exile government.

This is the first time that the Chinese authorities have detained large 
numbers of Tibetan pilgrims returning from the ceremony, held regularly in 
India among other places.

Many of the pilgrims are elderly and have been detained for more than two 
months in central Tibet, or what China calls the Tibet Autonomous Region. 
The detainees are being interrogated and undergoing patriotic re-education 
classes, and have been ordered to denounce the Dalai Lama, who presided over 
the ceremony, known as the Kalachakra, say people who have researched the 
detentions. The detainees are being held at hotels, schools and military 
training centers or bases; some are being forced to pay for their lodging 
and meals.

The detentions are expected to stoke resentment among Tibetans toward the 
Chinese government at a time when tensions across the Tibetan plateau are at 
the highest in years.

The pilgrims were detained at checkpoints while returning overland via Nepal 
or while flying into Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. Some have been released, 
and many who were held in central Tibet but are officially registered as 
residents in other regions have been sent to those areas, according to the 
researchers, who interviewed released detainees and their friends and 
relatives.

The Kalachakra ceremony, an important teaching ritual in Tibetan Buddhism, 
takes place some winters in Bodh Gaya, the site in the Indian state of Bihar 
where the Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment. The Dalai Lama 
travels there from his home here in the Himalayan hill town of Dharamsala to 
give teachings, and Tibetans and other Buddhists from around the world 
attend.

Though the Chinese government vilifies the Dalai Lama and calls him a 
“splittist,” some officials have been willing to quietly allow Tibetans to 
attend the ceremony, given its religious significance. This year, Chinese 
officials did not grant passports to many monks who wanted to attend, but 
they did loosen restrictions in other areas — Tibetans from Yunnan Province 
reportedly were allowed to attend for the first time. Many Tibetans going to 
the ceremony often travel with Chinese passports to India through Nepal or 
fly directly to India, and they avoid explicitly telling Chinese officials 
that they are planning to attend the Kalachakra. The Tibetan 
government-in-exile estimated that 8,000 Tibetans from Tibetan areas of 
China attended this year.

It is unclear why Chinese officials allowed large numbers of Tibetan 
pilgrims to go abroad around the time of the Kalachakra, only to detain them 
upon their return. The crackdown appears to be part of the growing conflict 
in Tibetan areas, which in the last year have been the site of the most 
intense and sustained protests since the 2008 uprising. Most startling are 
the self-immolations: At least 32 people have set fire to themselves to 
protest Chinese rule; about two dozen of those have died. Chinese officials 
have said some of those who attempted self-immolation were mentally unstable 
or were acting under the Dalai Lama’s direction. The Dalai Lama has denied 
any involvement.

“About the pilgrim returnees, last I heard was they were detained and many 
put in hotel rooms,” said Lobsang Sangay, the prime minister of the Tibetan 
government-in-exile. He added that the detainees had been “interrogated 
regularly,” with questions focusing on what various officials, including 
himself, the Dalai Lama and the previous prime minister, Samdhong Rinpoche, 
had said in speeches during the Kalachakra.

Human rights organizations and Tibet advocacy groups have put out reports 
based on information collected through interviews. “This is the first known 
instance since the late 1970s in which the Chinese authorities have detained 
laypeople in Tibet in large numbers to force them to undergo re-education,” 
Human Rights Watch said in a statement. The group said that it was unclear 
how long the detainees were being held, and that there had been no reports 
of any of the 700 Han, the dominant ethnic group in China, who attended the 
Kalachakra being detained.

Calls made Friday to the Beijing offices of the United Front Work 
Department, which helps oversee Tibet policy, and to the border affairs 
office of the Tibet Autonomous Region went unanswered.

Some insight into the hard-line thinking on the Kalachakra may be gleaned 
from a commentary published on March 28 by China Daily, a state-run 
English-language newspaper. The commentary, written by Xiao Jie, an 
assistant researcher at the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, 
said this year’s Kalachakra “was not a political gathering, it was a 
political show staged by the Dalai Lama and his clique in the name of 
Tibetan Buddhism.”

He added: “The assembly was filled with sermons instigating hatred, terror 
and extremism, and the self-proclaimed ‘government-in-exile of Tibet’ 
irresponsibly declared that it admired the spirit of the Tibetan people who 
committed suicide by self-immolation.”

On Tuesday, Radio Free Asia, which is financed by the United States 
government, reported that a large number of the detainees being held in 
Lhasa had been released that day, while at least 200 others being held in 
Lhoka, outside Lhasa, were still in custody.

One Tibetan woman living in Dharamsala said in an interview that a relative 
of hers who had come for the Kalachakra was told by family members in Lhasa 
that officials wanted all pilgrims to return before Losar, the Tibetan New 
Year, which fell in late February. The relative rushed back to Lhasa but has 
not been heard from since and is presumed to be detained.

A writer and former employee of the exile government, Bhuchung Sonam, said a 
friend of his in Dharamsala had discovered that his mother was among those 
detained. The friend had called his sister in Lhasa to find out how their 
mother was doing. According to Mr. Bhuchung Sonam, the sister replied: 
“Mother had a cold and was hospitalized for a while after she came back. 
She is here for Losar but has to go back for further injections.”

The friend later realized that the coded message indicated that their mother 
had been detained in a guesthouse for interrogation and was being forced to 
pay the expenses for her stay. The mother was released for Losar but asked 
to return for further interrogation, Mr. Bhuchung Sonam said.

He added, “I think Beijing’s decision to detain those who were returning 
from India en masse reflects its total paranoia about the ‘Dalai clique’s’ 
 influence.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/world/asia/china-said-to-detain-returning-tibetan-pilgrims.html?_r=1&hp