(TibetanReview.net, Jan16’25) – A total of nine UN human rights experts and working groups have included nine Tibetans in a list of disappeared victims of government perpetrated human rights violations in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and have called for information on their fate and whereabouts, said Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (savetibet.org) Jan 15.
The group said the nine Tibetan victims specifically mentioned in the joint communication included five who had been arrested in Aug 2022 in Serthar County of Kardze Prefecture, Sichuan Province, for performing a religious service that involved burning incense leaves and saying prayers. They have been named as Chugdar, Gelo, Tsedo, Bhamo and Kori.
The experts have said these five Tibetans were subsequently taken to an unknown location, and their relatives were not allowed to send them food.
One of them – monk Chugdar – was said to have died in custody a few days after his arrest as a result of being “allegedly subjected to severe beatings and other forms of torture and ill-treatment,” the joint communication was quoted as saying.
The other four Tibetans mentioned by the experts were stated to include two monks from Kirti monastery in eastern Tibet and two others allegedly arrested in Sep 2024. Since their wrongful arrest, there has been no information about the fate and whereabouts of the Tibetans Lobsang
Samten, Lobsang Trinley, Wangkyi and Tsering Tashi, or the accusations against them, they have noted.
The UN experts are also stated to have called for information on other victims of human rights violations in the PRC, including the well-known Uyghur economics professor and activist Ilham Tohti, who has remained in custody for eleven years and who was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament.
The joint statement was stated to have been signed by six UN special rapporteurs and three representatives of working groups on specific human rights violations, including the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of opinion, peaceful assembly and freedom of association, the situation of human rights defenders, freedom of religion and belief, forced or involuntary disappearance of persons, and arbitrary detention.