China's crackdown on ethnic minorities has once again been pushed into the spotlight, this time in Tibet, after a new report revealed for the first time that four monks were sentenced up to 20 years in prison on unknown charges.
The 61-page report by Human Rights Watch found four monks from Tengdro monastery in Tingri county – Choegyal Wangpo, Lobsang Jinpa, Norbu Dondrup, and Ngawang Yeshe – were sentenced to 20, 19, 17, and five years respectively in September 2020.
They were detained after police received a lost phone belonging to Choegyal Wangpo in 2019.
His phone revealed messages sent to exiled monks in a sister monastery in Nepal, and evidence of humanitarian donations following the 2015 earthquake.
"Tibetans routinely communicate with people in other countries by phone or text message.
"Sending funds abroad … is likely to be monitored [by the government] but is not illegal in China unless it includes a specific offence such as fraud, contact with an illegal organisation, encouraging separatism, or espionage, none of which appear to have been involved in this case."
Local police raided the monastery and the adjoining village of Dranak, reportedly beating monks and villagers.
They detained 20 monks under suspicion of exchanging messages with overseas Tibetans, contributing relief to a sister monastery in Nepal and owning photos or texts related to the Dalai Lama.
Sophie Richardson, China director of Human Rights Watch, told the ABC the charges may be related to a series of different concerns which have accumulated in the one community.
"The security concerns, the border concerns, the online posts, the connections with Nepal combined [can perhaps] explain these apocalyptically harsh sentences," she said.
Imposing political education
China still maintains that Tibet is an "integral" and "inseparable" part of its territory, but many Tibetans' allegiances lie with their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Thousands of Chinese troops invaded Tibet in 1950 and incorporated the region into China's territory the following year, which Beijing refers to as "peaceful liberation".
After the failed Tibetan uprising in opposition to Chinese rule in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India where he still lives in exile today.
Many of the region's monasteries were destroyed during China's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s, and many Tibetans were also believed to have been killed.
"What we're seeing is not exclusive to that community. Certainly we've seen it for Uyghurs, that simply having connections with the outside world is increasingly considered to be a sign of potential political disloyalty," Ms Richardson said.
As information from the region is scarce, details for the report was gathered through interviews with Tibetans outside China, official media, social media, and exile media reports.
Chinese officials have since held political education sessions with the monastery and village residents, reportedly focusing on "opposing separatism", according to the report.
"The situation there remains quite tense," Ms Richardson said.
"It means that an entire community continues to be subjected. It's sort of a collective punishment fashion."
Sources told Human Rights Watch the 20 Tengdro monks were held for several months without trial and were only released after pledging not to carry out political acts.
They have reportedly since been barred from rejoining the monastery.
One monk, Lobsang Zoepa, 52, reportedly killed himself in protest of the treatment that he, his fellow monks and children received during the raids, according to Human Rights Watch.
The report suggests that the United Nations should "urge the Chinese government to release the Tengdro monks" and establish "an impartial and independent United Nations mechanism … to closely monitor, analyse and report annually on the human rights situation in China".
It also recommends that concerned governments "consider imposing targeted individual sanctions on officials responsible for human rights violations" in the Tibet region.
The ABC has contacted the Chinese government for comment.
