(TibetanReview.net, Jul15’22) – Police in the northern French town of Saint-Léonard have recovered a knife and taken into custody four suspects following the discovery in the compound of a Chinese owned restaurant there of the dead body of a Tibetan employee on Jul 11, according to local media reports.
The 32-year-old Tibetan man, named as Tsultrim, was stated to have begun working at the Délices d’Asie Saint-Léonard only a few days earlier. His body was reported to have been found in the restaurant’s parking lot, covered with a tarpaulin sheet, at 8:15 pm (local time). Police are reported to treat the case as murder.
Following the incident, many Tibetans working at the restaurant as well as other Chinese restaurants in other parts of France were stated to have quit their jobs to demand justice for the deceased.
Tsultrim, who was stated to be originally from Lithang, in the eastern Tibetan region of Kham (now part of China’s Sichuan Province), had been living in France since 2014.
Tibetan groups in France have planned to carry out a peace march from Place de la Bastille to Place de la République square in Paris on Sunday (Jul 17) – a distance of 2km – in memory of the deceased and to show solidarity with the victim’s family. There will also be a march in Saint-Léonard itself on Jul 18, followed by a prayer gathering on Jul 24.
Many Tibetans are seen to suspect the restaurant’s owner and its Chinese employees of being directly involved in the Tibetan youth’s apparent murder. There is, however, no information whatsoever on the circumstances surrounding the victim’s death, or any possible reason why he may have got killed.
In an outburst of anger, some Tibetans have, on Jul 14, vandalized the temporarily closed Chinese restaurant. Videos of the incident posted online show windowpanes being broken and a car overturned in the restaurant’s parking lot.