By Bill Smith Jun 20, 2008, 10:26 GMT
Beijing - Outsiders have only a vague idea of what has happened in Tibet since mid-March, when paramilitary police and troops began a crackdown on violent anti-Chinese protests and rioting.
The government has since sealed off the Tibet Autonomous Region and neighbouring Tibetan areas, with the only reports coming from tightly controlled state media and local Tibetans who have contact with overseas support groups and Tibetan exiles.
'The complete lockdown in Tibet is allowing human rights abuses such as arbitrary detentions, ill treatment and severe censorship to go unreported and unpunished,' Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director Sam Zarifi, said earlier this week.
'Hundreds of people languish in Chinese prisons for peacefully expressing their opinions, in appalling conditions and without their relatives even knowing where they are,' Zarifi said.
The London-based group accused the ruling Communist Party of a 'continuing violent crackdown against protesters' and urged it to provide information about more than 1,000 Tibetans arrested during the protests.
The government took a group of foreign journalists to Lhasa on Friday to watch the Olympic torch relay in the ethnically divided city, but it was extremely unlikely that they would have any open access to major monasteries or prisons.
The protests began on March 10, the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
For several weeks afterwards, state television repeatedly showed images of Tibetan rioters in Lhasa, but said little about the protests in dozens of other places.
The government said at least 18 civilians and one police officer died at the hands of rioters in Lhasa on March 14, and that 382 civilians and 241 police officers were injured.
But it has not reported a single death of a protester in Lhasa or any other Tibetan area, despite claims by Tibetan exile groups that they have identified at least 200 Tibetans who were shot dead by police and troops during the protests.
Some Tibetans arrested in Lhasa have already faced trial, while several major monasteries in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas were reportedly controlled by paramilitary police since March.
The London-based group Free Tibet said the torch would be 'paraded down the very streets on which peaceful protests were met with brutal crackdowns in March.'
'The Chinese government must not be allowed to exploit the Olympics to promote the illusion that China and Tibet are free and open societies,' Free Tibet said.
The group is campaigning for foreign leaders and other dignitaries boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on August 8.
Earlier this month, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge angered Tibetan independence groups when he said it was 'normal' for China to take the Olympic flame to Tibet.
'Tibet is a part of China and a region of China so it is normal that they pass through Tibet,' Rogge said.
Mary Beth Markey, vice president of the International Campaign for Tibet, said the IOC was 'irresponsible' for allowing the relay in Tibet.
'It beggars belief that Mr Rogge could claim anything about Tibet is normal at the moment,' Markey said.
'It is not 'normal' that almost the entire Tibetan plateau has been locked down; and it is certainly not 'normal' that the whereabouts of hundreds and possibly thousands of Tibetans remain unknown with people continuing to disappear every day,' she said.
One leading Western scholar of Tibet said in March that China's tougher rhetoric against the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fuelled the unrest that led to the violent protests.
'The one person who could solve this problem immediately is the Dalai Lama, but the unrest has almost certainly been triggered by the Chinese renewal in 2006 of their public campaigns against him,' said Robbie Barnett, a professor of Tibetan studies at Columbia University in New York.
China held talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama last month, but it is unclear if any progress was made.
The government continues to accuse the Dalai Lama of pursuing independence for Tibet, despite his frequent public renouncement of independence in favour of maximum autonomy for Tibetans within China.
Just days after the talks with his envoys, state media again accused the Dalai Lama of 'monstrous crimes,' including the encouragement of violent protests.
Despite China's fierce rhetoric, the Dalai Lama recently told Australian broadcaster ABC in Sydney that he did not support protests by local Tibetans during the torch relay in Tibet.
He said Tibetans should respect the pride of Chinese people in holding the Olympics, according to a transcript of his interview posted on the official website of the Tibetan government in exile.
The Dalai Lama said it was 'better' not to disrupt the torch relay as such protests were 'not much use.'
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