[lg policy] Tibet students jailed for protest as language tensions rise

[Harold Schiffman]

Tibet students jailed for protest as language tensions rise
Yojana Sharma14 December 2012 Issue No:252
 	
Eight Tibetan medical school students have been sentenced to five
years in prison after a major protest involving more than 1,000 people
was held in Chabcha in the Tsolho region of Qinghai province. Students
demanded freedom of language and equality of ‘nationalities’ – a
reference to China’s minority peoples, including Tibetans.

The students, sentenced on 5 December for their involvement in the
protests, were named on Wednesday by the International Campaign for
Tibet as: Rabten, Wangdue Tsering, Chamba Tsering, Choekyong, Tashi
Kunsang, Dorjee Tsering, Sanggye Dundrup and Kunsang Bum.

Experts said such long jail sentences were unprecedented so soon after
an incident and could signal a shift in government policy against
students and others who protest against the dilution of Tibetan
language and culture.

Many details of the incident that provoked the sentences are still unclear.

What has been verified via video footage and other information
received by Tibetan exile groups is that on 26 November armed Chinese
police used force to break up the student-led demonstration protesting
against China’s language policies and freedoms in Tibet.

Many students were injured and almost two dozen students were hospitalised.

The Chinese authorities said the protests were led by students of
Sirig Lobling Medical School in Chabcha, which is known as Gonghe in
Chinese. The school teaches Chinese and Tibetan traditional medicine
and other vocational courses.

Political booklet

The protests were sparked by a 10-point political questionnaire and
the distribution to students of a government-issued political booklet
for ‘patriotic education’ that criticised recent self-immolation
protests in Tibet, and included disparaging remarks against the
Tibetan religious leader the Dalai Lama.

According to another campaign group, the Tibetan Centre for Human
Rights and Democracy, which issued a translation into English of the
booklet Ten Ways of Looking at the Present Situation in Tsolho
Prefecture, it included questions such as: “Will the bilingual
education system weaken the language and letters of nationalities?”

Students were angry that they would be forced to answer highly
political questions.

“These were clearly trap questions which required students to approve
of bilingual education and condemn self-immolations. They were forced
[to respond] as it would be a risk to them to do otherwise,” said
Robert Barnett, director of the Modern Tibet Studies programme at
Columbia University.

The Chinese government has said bilingual education, rather than
teaching in the Tibetan mother tongue, will give Tibetan students
better access to higher education and jobs.

However, tensions over language teaching in schools and universities
in the region have erupted in recent years as the government sought to
impose a rigid version of the policy. Language protests in Qinghai in
2010 led to a major crackdown and the virtual imposition of martial
law in the region.

In cases where those who self-immolated – there have been more than 90
cases in Tibet since 2009 – have left statements, they have tended to
be about Tibetan language and culture rather than politics, said
Barnett.

He added that unlike the Lhasa area, where bilingual education has
been imposed for decades, the Qinghai area of Tibet had been
“spectacularly successful” in allowing Tibetan-medium education
including at the tertiary level. But this was now being tightened up.

Unusual jail sentences

Although the release of the names of the students sentenced this month
gives the reports some credence, Barnett was cautious, saying normally
a jail sentence of five years is only handed down after a longer
investigation lasting around three months.

“It is a long sentence for what could be seen as relatively minor
events such as protesting without permission and burning booklets.”

“If the reports from Tibet are correct, it means something of
significance has happened [in Chabcha], and a major shift in
government policy could be [under way],” he said.

The involvement of students in the protests was an important
development, as students are normally restrained and are seen as an
elite, not wanting to jeopardise their job prospects, Barnett added.

“It also rare for students to be targeted by security forces and it is
puzzling why any police violence was necessary.”

This month Tibet scholars from universities around the world wrote an
open letter to China’s president-to-be, Xi Jinping, expressing “deep
concern” about the state of the Tibetan language in Chinese Tibet.

They noted that the language was being “seemingly marginalised and
devalued” in Tibet at a time when it is increasingly being taught and
studied in universities around the world.

The group pointed out that in recent years the Chinese authorities
have been trying to “institute new measures that eliminate or severely
restrict the use of Tibetan as the language of instruction in
Tibetan-speaking areas”.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20121214121850799

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