|
 If you follow Tibet news closely then you will have seen many recent stories on Karma Samdrup (pictured right), an influential Tibetan environmentalist and antiques dealer sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
So why is Karma Samdrup’s case different and why has everyone from the New York Times to the BBC to the UK’s Guardian newspaper suddenly taken interest? Karma Samdrup is not only the highest profile Tibetan to be arrested in recent years. He is also the latest victim in what appears to be China’s largest crackdown on Tibetan intellectuals, writers and artists since the Cultural Revolution.
As one report from the Associated Press put it: “Karma Samdrup was always the kind of Tibetan the Chinese government liked.” He won national awards and praise for his environmental work and stayed outside of politics.
The trouble began last year after he tried to help his two brothers - fellow environmentalists who had been sentenced to re-education-through-labor after accusing a local police chief of poaching endangered animals.
Reports suggest that Karma Samdrup endured indescribably brutal mistreatment during his six months of detention. According to Human Rights Watch, his trial was marked by “severe and numerous procedural violations and restrictions”, including use of “evidence” obtained through torture, a practice recently outlawed by China’s Supreme People’s Court.
According to Karma Samdrup’s wife:
“The account we heard afterwards exceeded our worst imaginations. We heard about hundreds of cruel torture methods, maltreatment around the clock, hitherto unheard of torture instruments and drugs, hard and soft tactics, and even of fellow prisoners being grouped together to extract a confession. If he did not reveal certain details he would be mentally tormented.”
Karma Samdrup’s lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, was not permitted to see him during his six months of detention. Indeed, even his wife and family were denied visits. Karma Samdrup and Pu Zhiqiang met for the first time on the eve of the trial. Police videotaped their entire 30-minute exchange, making a frank exchange nearly impossible. The court refused to allow Pu Zhiqang full access to the prosecution file, making it impossible for him to prepare a comprehensive defence.
In the end Karma Samdrup was sentenced to fifteen years, stripped of his political rights for five years and fined 10,000 Yuan on charges of grave robbing and dealing in looted antiques. (The charges dated from 1998, when he was accused but later cleared of buying artefacts from a looted tomb.)
“For the first time, we’re seeing the government attack a group of people who previously had nothing to do with politics,” said Robbie Barnett, director of Columbia University’s Modern Tibetan Studies Program, in a New York Times article titled “Tibetans Fear a Broader Crackdown”.
According to the International Campaign for Tibet’s May report, “A ‘Raging Storm’: The Crackdown on Tibetan Writers and Artists after Tibet’s Spring 2008 Protests”, 31 Tibetans are now in prison “after reporting or expressing views, writing poetry or prose, or simply sharing information about Chinese government policies and their impact in Tibet today.” The list includes students, businesspeople, intellectuals and artists.
Other recent high profile cases include Tibetan writer Tragyal (pen name: Shogdung) and singer Tashi Dhondup, both profiled below.
“They are being taken from their homes in the middle of the night,” says Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet. “These are individuals who are politically moderate, often secular, and yet the Chinese authorities are seeking to silence them.”
To some, the increasing determination to squelch all forms of dissent represents a growing fear within the Communist Party that it is losing its grip on Tibet, a fear stoked predominantly by 2008’s unprecedented wave of protests. That said, Robbie Barnett believes the arrests are more likely instigated by over-zealous local officials than by the central government in Beijing. The Communist Party tends to reward tough and heavy-handed officials. Moderates rarely rise to higher positions in the Party.
Nonetheless, Barnett sees a correlation between Beijing’s heavy-handed response to the 2008 unrest and the growing criticism from Tibetan intellectuals, including former Party loyalists such as Shogdung (see below).
“In some cases, Mr. Barnet and others say, the crackdown has prompted formerly risk-averse Tibetans to challenge the status quo through books, blogs and poems.” (New York Times)
Furthermore, the targeting of the “Tibetan educated and well-to-do”, such as Karma Samdrup, may “radicalise a segment of the population that had come to accept the imperfections of Chinese rule”.
Whatever the case, the recent spate of arrests has sent shudders through the Tibetan community. According to revered Tibetan blogger Tsering Woeser:
“People are very angry, but they are also afraid. The feeling is that if someone as influential as Karma can be taken down, none of us is safe.”
Karma Samdrup
A wealthy philanthropist, environmentalist and Tibetan art collector, Karma Samdrup was a darling of China’s state media. In 2006 he was named China Central Television’s “philanthropist of the year”. Fluent in Mandarin but devoted to his cultural roots, Karma Samdrup is, according to the New York Times, “in many ways the idealized Tibetan”. His environmental organization - the Qinghai Three Rivers Environmental Protection Group - has won grants from For Motor, Friends of the Earth and a foundation run by the film star Jet Li. He has been nicknamed the “King of Heavenly Beads” for his immense collection of traditional Tibetan artefacts, part of which he planned to donate to a state-run museum. He is the subject of two Chinese-language books, now banned by government censors.
While arrested and sentenced on a previously dismissed charge of dealing in looted antiques, experts believe he has been targeted and silenced for his efforts to help his two brothers Rinchen Samdrup and Jigme Namgyal - who had been sentenced to re-education-through-labor after accusing a local police chief of poaching endangered animals.
Karma Samdrup described in court the interrogation methods to which he had been subjected in detention, including beatings and drugs that made his ears bleed. He has been sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
Tragyal (Shogdung)
 Tragyal, more commonly known by his pen name Shogdung, was an editor at a state-run publishing house in Qinghai Province. In the past he was derided by many Tibetans for his loyalty to the Communist Party and regarded disparagingly as “an official intellectual”.
Shogdung was nonetheless dismayed by the Chinese Government’s response to 2008’s unrest and published his thoughts in a book titled “The Line Between the Sky and Earth”. In one section he describes Tibet as “a terrifying battleground”. “At the junctions of monasteries and villages, soldiers parade. Such places are full of spies. It’s so frightening.”
Shogdung was taken from his home by police in April this year. His family has been unable to locate him since.
Tashi Dhondup
 Tashi Dhondup is a young Tibetan singer, arrested in China at the end of last year, taken from his wife and newly born baby, and sentenced in January to fifteen months hard labor.
Tashi Dondup’s songs, some infused with defiant lyrics, were popular among Tibetans. His CDs were passed among friends and individual songs shared over the internet and by mobile phone.
According to the BBC, “his crime may have been simply that he was so popular”.
What The Experts Are Saying
Kate Saunders (International Campaign for Tibet):
“It appears that almost any expression of Tibetan identity can be categorized as separatist or reactionary. These are not angry monks raising their fists in protest but people working within the system who are engaged in work that’s essential for a healthy civil society.”
Robbie Barnett (Columbia University):
“There’s something unusual and disturbing about this case. China has often been accused of using aggressive laws to silence critics, particularly in Tibet, but there’s no record of this family of Tibetan environmentalists criticizing China’s policies. In fact they’ve been widely written about in China as model citizens.”
“These are prominent people who there was no question had helped the state because they were hailed as model citizens, with no sign that we know of them criticizing the state. And yet they’re facing these extreme charges with no evidence to support them.”
Human Rights Watch
“The case [of Karma Samdrup] has been marked by severe and numerous procedural violations and restrictions on his right to defense.”
“Even by Chinese legal standards, the prosecution’s case is thin at best.”
Links
ICT: Fear for Three Environmentalist Brothers as ‘Gaunt’ Karma Samdrup on Trial After Torture
ICT Report: A ‘Raging Storm’: The Crackdown on Tibetan Writers and Artists after Tibet’s Spring 2008 Protests
Associated Press: China Now Pressuring Tibetans Outside Politics
New York Times: Tibetans Fear a Broader Crackdown
The Guardian: Tibetan Environmentalist Says Chinese Jailers Tortured Him
BBC: Tibetan Cultural Figures ‘Detained After Protests |
