Human rights in Tibet is a subject which has been intensely scrutinized and debated on the international level, particularly since the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China. Before the 1950s, Tibet's social structure was marked by inequality and as a result, it was described as a caste-like system or controversially, it was described as a system of serfdom. Severe punishments, including the permanent mutilation of body parts, were common, but capital punishment was banned in 1913. The Muslim warlord Ma Bufang caused widespread destruction and deaths in Amdo, which is located northeast of Central Tibet.
It is difficult to accurately determine the scope of the human rights abuses in Tibet since 1950 because the media is tightly controlled by the Chinese government and information about human rights is censored.US State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2008 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau), February 25, 2009 Exile groups report that Tibetans in China are subjected to enforced disappearances and torture, including electric shocks, cold exposure, and severe beatings. Hundreds of Tibetans have been killed in crackdowns on dissent, and thousands more have been arbitrarily arrested and detained. Freedoms of speech, the press and political expression are suppressed or tightly controlled. Other methods which the Chinese authorities employ include heavy physical labor, "political investigation" sessions, and re-education through labor.
Allegations of genocide have been made by Tibetan rights groups due to famines and civil conflicts as well as allegations of cultural genocide via the sinicization of Tibet. These claims are disputed due to a stated lack of evidence and the general increases in the size of the Tibetan population, but a significant loss of life occurred during the 1950s and 1960s.
The Chinese government places strict limitations on the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. Public prayers for the 14th Dalai Lama are banned, and large religious gatherings require the government's approval. The authorities consistently discredit the 14th Dalai Lama by portraying him as a political figure rather than a religious figure, pressuring Tibetan Buddhists not to worship him.
Social system
According to the journalist and writer Israel Epstein, a Polish Jew, a naturalized Chinese citizen, and a member of the CCP (who had not visited Tibet prior to its annexation by the PRC), "the old society" in Tibet "had nothing even remotely resembling human rights." He explains: "High and low, the belief had for centuries been enforced on the Tibetans that everyone's status was predetermined by fate, as a reward for virtues or penalty for faults on one's past incarnations. Hence it was deemed senseless for the rich (even though compassion was abstractly preached) to have qualms about sitting on the necks of the poor, and both criminal and blasphemous for the poor not to patiently bear the yoke. ‘Shangri-La’ the old Tibet was definitely not."Epstein, Israel, My China Eye: memoirs of a Jew and a journalist, Long River Press, 2005, 358 p., p. 277 .
Robert W. Ford was one of the few Westerners to have been appointed by the Government of Tibet at the time of its de facto independence. From 1945 to 1950, he spent five years in Tibet before he was arrested by the invading Chinese army. In his book Wind Between the Worlds: Captured in Tibet, he wrote
An ancient form of slavery which preceded the development of the feudal system, was still extant in a small number of manors in old Tibet (prior to 1959): the nanggzan manors (nanggzan meaning "family slave" in Tibetan). In these, according to Chinese sociologist Liu Zhong, "exploitation was not through land-rent but through enslavement" to the manor's owner. In return for working the land, the slaves were provided with lodging, clothing and food, albeit minimal. "Some slaves had their families [with them] while others did not." This residual form of slavery was finally abolished in Central Tibet in 1959 by the Preparatory Committee for the Founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region.Liu Zhong, On the K'ralpa Manors of Tibet , The Humanities Study, 2003-5-23.
In Eastern societies, the nature and applicability of serfdom is contested by academics. In 1971, the Tibetologist Melvyn Goldstein wrote that "Tibet was characterized by a form of institutionalized inequality that can be called pervasive serfdom".Goldstein, Journal of Asian Studies, May 1971, pp. 521-34. However some academics have questioned the applicability of the concept to Tibet, a recent example was who argued in 2003 that feudalism and the use of the term 'serf' was misleading in relation to the social system of Tibet and instead she described it as "a caste-like social hierarchy".
In the political debate concerning the legitimacy of the CCP's rule of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, official Chinese sources assert that the Communist invasion was justified in order to end the practice of "feudal serfdom" and other alleged human rights abuses under the Dalai Lama.
The Tibetan Government in Exile and supporters of the Tibetan independence movement contend that during the first half of the 20th century, efforts to modernize the country were underway, and they also argue that since the annexation of Tibet by the CCP, the human rights abuses which have been committed have inflicted greater suffering and repression upon the Tibetan people.
Crimes and punishments Trader Gyebo Sherpa was subjected to the severe corca whipping for selling cigarettes. He died from his wounds 2 days later in the Potala prison. Tashi Tsering, a self-described critic of traditional Tibetan society, records being whipped as a 13-year-old for missing a performance as a dancer in the Dalai Lama's dance troupe in 1942, until the skin split and the pain became excruciating.Goldstein, Tsering, and Siebenschuh, 1997, pp. 3-5. The Dalai Lama was reportedly seven years old at the time.
Yet, incidents of mutilation have been recorded in Tibet in the period between the start of the 20th Century and the PRC annexation. Tibetan communist Phuntso Wangye recalled his anger at seeing freshly severed human ears hanging from the gate of the county headquarters in Damshung north of Lhasa in 1945.Goldstein, Sherap, Siebenschuh 2004 p. 90. The top level Tibetan official Lungshar's eyes were gouged out by direct order of the Kashag or Tibetan Government was carried out in 1934. An attempt was made at anesthetizing the alleged criminal with intoxicants before performing the punishment, which unfortunately did not work well.
In 1950, the six Tibetan border guards that had been involved in the killing or wounding of Frank Bessac's companions (one of them Douglas Mackiernan) as they were fleeing into Tibet from the Communist advance, were tried and sentenced to mutilation in Lhasa's military court: "The leader was to have his nose and both ears cut off. The man who fired the first shot was to lose both ears. A third man was to lose one ear, and the others were to get 50 lashes each." (The punishment was subsequently changed to lashings on Bessac's request.)These Tibetans killed an American... and get the lash for it. This was the perilous trek to tragedy by Frank Bessac, as told to James Burke, Time-Life correspondent in New Delhi, Life , November 1950, pp. 130-136: "Just before we left Lhasa, I was told that the six border guards had been tried and sentenced in Lhasa's military court. The leader was to have his nose and both ears cut off. The man who fired the first shot was to lose both ears. A third man was to lose one ear, and the others were to get 50 lashes each. (...) Since the Tibetan Buddhists do not believe in capital punishment, mutilation is the stiffest sentence given in Tibet. But I felt that this punishment was too severe, so I asked if it could be lightened. My request was granted. The new sentences were: 200 lashes each for the leader and the man who fired the first shot, 50 lashes for the third man and 25 each for the other.
Hostility towards Western missions and churches In past centuries, Western missionaries made the perilous and time-consuming journey to Tibet, only to be frustrated by the low number of native converts, expelled from the area, or even killed. But at different stages of Tibetan history secular rulers and religious leaders such as the Dalai Lama have been eager to protect Western missionaries and their tasks of preaching Christian beliefs to the local Tibetans. The first Western missionary known to have reached Lhasa was the Jesuit Father Antonio de Andrade, accompanied by Fratello Manuel Marques. Their first encounter with the Tibetans occurred in 1624 and was cordial, with the Tibetans greeting Andrade and Marques with friendliness. However, as their mission expanded and gained followers, Christians soon faced persecution in Tibet, and the mission was eventually expelled.
In 1630, the Tsaparang Jesuit mission in the Guge Kingdom (presently the Gantok district of West Tibet) fell victim to an uprising by dissident local Yellow Hat lamas, led by the king's brother and abetted by the king of Ladakh, against the King who had lavished favours on the alien mission. Many Christian converts were carried off by force to Ladakh as slaves. The church and properties at Tsaparang and Rudok were sacked, and five resident Jesuits became virtual prisoners of the king of Ladakh who had become the de-facto ruler of Guge. A 1640 effort to reestablish the mission in Guge collapsed when a party of three new priests was attacked as it entered Tibet before reaching Tsaparang and was forced to retreat to India.Hsiao-ting Lin, When Christianity and Lamaism Met: The Changing Fortunes of Early Western Missionaries in Tibet , esp. chapters « Christianity and Tibetan Politics » and « The Fate of Western Missionaries in Tibet ».
Between 1850 and 1880, after the Qing court's decree allowing Western missionaries to purchase lands and construct churches in Chinese provinces, as many as a dozen lower ranking priests of the Paris Foreign Mission Society were killed or injured during their journeys to missionary outposts in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. In 1881, Father Brieux, then head of the Paris Foreign Mission Society in Batang in eastern Tibet, was reported to have been murdered on his way to Lhasa. After proper investigations, Qing officials discovered that the murder cases were covertly supported and even orchestrated by local lamaseries and native chieftains. Feeling threatened by the increasing number of new Christian converts in eastern Tibet, as well as by the imperial decree allowing the missionaries to openly purchase and possess land, the lamaistic monastic communities and their political patrons felt the need to take drastic measures to secure their religious, financial, and political interests.