The police have detained 59 people in Tibet on charges that they sought to foment unrest by spreading ethnic hatred and by downloading and selling banned songs, Chinese state media reported Thursday.
The detainees, none of whom were identified, are accused of acting at the behest of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader whom the government blames for encouraging separatist sentiment in heavily Tibetan areas.
Since Dec. 4, public security officials have been sweeping the markets of Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, looking for compact discs that contain “reactionary songs,” according to the China News Service. Those who distribute such songs, the report said, “hope to spark violence and damage Lhasa’s political stability.”
Although news reports did not say whether the detainees were formally arrested and charged, they are accused of threatening national security by advocating for an independent Tibet and by expressing disdain for the ethnic Han migrants who now dominate commerce in Lhasa and other Tibetan cities. [Emphasis added]
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Tibet is not a free country. Tibetans living under fifty years of Chinese military occupation bear the brunt of a brutal government that is scared of what Tibetans think, what they dislike, what they read, what music they listen to, what songs they sing, and what they believe. It’s a global embarrassment that the world community does not respond to China’s tyrannical occupation of Tibet with even a modicum of outrage.
Hold Fast 