Three Tibetan teenagers in the Tibetan region of Qinghai, China, have been arrested by police for failing to register their WeChat group with the local government. One of the teenagers is in hospital with a broken leg after being beaten by police, the London-based nonprofit Free Tibet Campaign said in a news release Wednesday (March 3). The other two remain in custody, the news said.
According to the Free Tibet Movement, the names of the three teenagers are Dhondup (Dadul,), Sangye Tso and Kansi.
Photos of Dhondup being beaten and having his legs broken came to light this week. Sources told Tibet Watch, a partner of the Free Tibet Movement, that police summoned Dondrub’s Family and asked them to bring 40,000 yuan to a hospital in Xining, hundreds of kilometers away. The money is supposed to pay for the surgery, the sources said. The police limited the number of people going to the hospital to less than two, the source added. According to the sources, Tonju’s family was threatened not to tell anyone about the incident.
Local sources confirmed that the three teens were arrested on Feb. 17, but could not give further details of their arrest or say where Sanjetso and Kansi are currently being held.
The Chinese government requires all WeChat groups to register with local regulators so that the government can monitor the content of the chats. The name of the WeChat group of the three Tibetan teenagers translates into English as “White Rocky Mountain Club,” a reference to a local Buddhist deity. The purpose of the chat group was allegedly to celebrate the Tibetan New Year, which took place from Feb. 12 to 14 this year. The chat group has attracted about 240 Internet users.
John Jones, head of the Free Tibet Campaign, said, “These young people are being brutalized for exercising a right that most people take for granted every day. Can people imagine facing imprisonment and having their limbs beaten until they break if they don’t invite government officials to join a chat group as required.”
Since the protests in Tibet in 2008, news of the persecution of Tibetans has been tightly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and almost impossible to get out. Despite this, Jones said, we still hear regularly about Tibetan political prisoners in China. Some of them have died in prison or died shortly after being released from long prison terms for daring to resist their oppressors in any small way.
March 10 is the day of the Tibetan uprising, which took place in Lhasa on March 10, 1959, against the Chinese Communist Party (which called it the Tibetan Rebellion), and is the anniversary of the exile of the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of Tibetans. John Jones, head of the Free Tibet Movement, “called on governments around the world to take practical action to remind the Chinese Communist Party that, despite their efforts to hide their atrocities, we have not forgotten the Tibetan people.
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