CHINA: China sentences eight Tibetans over self-immolations

Record ID: 1963381

  • Title: CHINA: China sentences eight Tibetans over self-immolations
  • Date: 1st February 2013
  • Summary: XIAHE COUNTY, GANSU PROVINCE, CHINA (JANUARY 31, 2013) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (CCTV - NO ACCESS CHINA) SIGN READING "XIAHE COUNTY PEOPLE'S COURT" JUDGE SPEAKING VARIOUS OF SUSPECTS STANDING IN COURTROOM PROSECUTOR READING INDICTMENT INDICTMENT ATTENDEES LISTENING SUSPECTS LISTENING ONE OF SUSPECTS SPEAKING VARIOUS OF JOURNALIST TAKING NOTES TRIAL IN PROCESS CHINA'S NATIONAL EMB
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  • Location: China
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Crime,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAC31SDLGH42L80WSYXX6EMKJ0J
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: China sentences eight Tibetans for alleged involvement in self-immolations, a move a prominent Tibetan activist says is intended to intimidate others unhappy under Chinese rule.


    China sentenced eight Tibetans on Thursday (January 31) for alleged involvement in a string of self-immolations which authorities have blamed on the Dalai Lama.
    Nearly 100 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest against Chinese rule since 2009. Most have died from their injuries.
    On Thursday, a court in the Aba prefecture in Sichuan province sentenced 40-year-old monk Lorang Konchok to death with a two-year reprieve for inciting eight people to set themselves on fire, state media reported.
    "The rules are as follows: Lorang Konchok is sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve and is stripped of political rights for life," the chief judge announced in footage broadcast by state-run China Central Television (CCTV).
    His nephew, Losang Tsering, 31, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, CCTV reported.
    Last December, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported that Lorang Konchok, who was detained with his nephew in August, confessed to police that he had followed instructions from exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and his followers.
    Lorang Konchok and his nephew passed on information about each self-immolation, including photographs, to overseas contacts belonging to a Tibetan independence organisation with mobile telephones, Xinhua said.
    Meanwhile, another court in Xiahe, Gansu province, handed out sentences of three to 12 years in prison to six Tibetans it said played roles in an October self-immolation.
    Woeser, a prominent Tibetan poet, blogger and activist living in Beijing, said the sentences were intended to intimidate other Tibetans.
    "I think by doing this they are trying to subdue Tibetans. The Han Chinese have a saying 'you kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.' They are giving such harsh sentences to show Tibetans, and to say 'Do you still dare? If you are going to burn yourselves, this is how we will deal with you.' This is what they're trying to do," Woeser said at her home on Friday (February 1).
    China has repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama and exiled Tibetan groups of fomenting the self-immolations.
    Beijing considers Nobel peace laureate the Dalai Lama, who fled from China in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, a violent separatist.
    The Dalai Lama says he is merely seeking greater autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.
    He has called on China to investigate the self-immolations. He has said he is not encouraging them but has called them "understandable".
    "One of China's favourite things to say is that nothing that happens is their own fault. Any group protest that they have caused they say is organised by 'anti-China separatist forces,' or some such. This is their time-old method. But this is also an extremely rigid, stupid way of handling things. In reality, it cannot possibly earn the people's acceptance," Woeser said.
    In Xiahe, home to the sprawling Labrang monastery, the court accused Padma Tamdru, Kelsang Gyamuktso, Padma Co, Lhamo Tamdru of intentional homicide and sentenced them to 12, 11, eight and seven years in jail, respectively, Xinhua reported.
    They were accused of attacking police and preventing them from rescuing a local teacher who had set himself on fire.
    It sentenced two more, Do Gekyap and Yang Monje, to four and three years in prison, respectively, for "picking quarrels and provoking troubles," Xinhua said
    Tibetan areas in China have been largely closed to foreign reporters, making an independent assessment of the situation there impossible.
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