Further information on Urgent Campaign - Chinese Army Shooting at Tibetan refugees at Nangpa La Pass (issued 6 October 2006)

New testimony, made public on 30 January 2007, provides further shocking information on the treatment of the group of Tibetan refugees, shot at and captured by Chinese border guards at the Nangpa La Pass on 30 September 2006.

After the shooting and killing of nun Kelsang Namtso (17) and Kunsang Namgyal (20), about 35 Tibetans, including teenagers and children, were captured and detained. Their whereabouts and welfare were unknown in spite of enquiries by foreign governments and UN agencies. In late January the first eyewitness account emerged from a 15 year old boy, who was part of the group that was detained but who subsequently escaped from Tibet (source: International Campaign for Tibet).

The boy, Jamyang Samten, testified that they were taken to a police station and interrogated for three days. Children aged 15 and over and the adult males in the group, mostly monks, were beaten with electric cattle prods. "It went on until I fainted,"Jamyang stated. After three days they were transferred to Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet. There the beatings continued. "A guard wearing a metal glove would hit us in the stomach". Jamyang also said people were chained to walls during the interrogation and were forced to work in a labour camp, digging ditches. Women received beatings with belts. Children under 15 were forced to do cleaning work and were only allowed outside to play for one hour each weekend.

Parents were only allowed to collect their children after the payment of a fine. Children who were not collected by their parents remained in detention for months. Jamyang was released to his parents after two days in Shigatse. He then managed to escape to safety in India. The fact that Tibetan parents are prepared to send their children through the Himalayas despite the dangers of frostbite, snow blindness and even death, is an indication of the desperate situation and life for Tibetans in Tibet.

Free Tibet Campaign has been working on this case since September 2006 pressing the British Government, the EU and the UN to investigate the incident, hold China accountable and secure the safety of the Tibetan refugees. However, the UK Government took a very lenient approach and has only been willing to raise the incident through the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue, which took place in November 2006. Since then no further action has been taken to secure the safety of the refugees or to hold China accountable for the killings.

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