Friday, May 2, 2014

Week Ending May 2, 2014

International Tibet Network News Digest & Analysis: 2 May 2014

Self-Immolations, Protests, and Restrictions in Tibet
Tibetan Monk Released Following Six-Year Jail Sentence - RFA
1 May | Lobsang Donyoe, 52, a monk from the Gonsar monastery in the Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture’s Dege county, was released earlier this week to warm greetings from the local community.

Bold Lone Protests in Tibet by Monk and Layperson - ICT
29 April | A teenage Tibetan monk from Kirti monastery carried out a lone protest with an image of the Dalai Lama on April 26 in the Ngaba street where many Tibetans have self-immolated since 2009. The solitary demonstration, which ended in the monk being beaten and taken into custody, followed a similar protest by a young Tibetan man in Manikengo town in Derge county, Kardze in Sichuan on April 8.

News
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Annual Report - ICT
30 April | According to the 2014 report, “The Chinese government continues to perpetrate particularly severe violations of religious freedom. For Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims, conditions are worse now than at any time in the past decade.”

Subcommittee Hearing: Assessing U.S. Foreign Assistance Priorities in South Asia - US Foreign Affairs
30 April | Assistant Secretary for South Asia Nisha Desai Biswal told Congress: "We continue to advocate for the long-staying Tibetan community and urge respect for their fundamental rights, including the freedom of religious expression. We regularly engage with the Nepali government on the “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” which allows recently arrived Tibetan refugees to transit through Nepal to India under the protection and assistance of UNHCR."

Opinion and Analysis
Hang Together: Why the EU Needs to Confront China on Rights - Human Rights Watch
29 April | Sophie Richardson asks “Why does it matter that from its senior-most levels the EU is unwilling to confront serious human rights abuses in China? ...The lack of political courage to address in a serious and ambitious way systemic human rights abuses profoundly undermines human rights defenders and vitiates the EU's claim to being a global champion of human rights.”

Tibet's long road to peace with China has an end if suspicions are put aside - SCMP
28 April | Tenzin Norgay writes, “Beijing should revisit its history to learn that the 1914 Simla accord was concluded at a time when China steadily lost its traditional dependencies in international politics.”

A Q&A with Matthew Akester, translator of Memories of Life in Lhasa Under Chinese Rule - Columbia University Press
28 April | Akester describes his history with Tibetan Tubten KhĂ©tsun’s autobiographical account of his time spent in Tibet after the Tibetan people’s uprising of March 10, 1959.

“I am a terrorist”: An Interview with Tenzin Tsundue - The Isis
27 April | Miranda Hall interviews Tibetan activist and writer Tenzin Tsundue about his past, his convictions, and his hopes for the future of the Tibetan movement.