A week after convicting two Tibetans of intentional homicide for inciting self-immolations, Chinese authorities have continued applying pressure through relevant laws. Reports Reuters:
Chinese authorities have detained 70 people in a crackdown on self-immolations in ethnic Tibetan regions, state media said on Thursday, the largest single reported sweep of suspects to date as the government tries to stop the unrest.
Twelve of the 70 were formally arrested and will be charged, according to Xinhua.
Qinghai deputy police chief Lu Benqian then had some complimentary, magnanimous, simply nice things to say about the Dalai Lama:
“The Dalai Lama clique masterminded and incited the self-immolations,” Lu said. “Personal information, such as photos of the victims, were sent overseas to promote the self-immolations.”
“A few individuals with a strong sense of extreme nationalism showed sympathy with the self-immolators and followed their example,” Lu said.
“The self-immolation cases were influenced by the separatism of the Dalai Lama clique, as the Dalai Lama has prayed for self-immolators and Tibetan separatists overseas flaunt them as ‘heroes’.”
The police chief forgot to mention the foreign elements. Just an oversight, I am sure, because there are *always* foreign elements involved in anything that isn’t going well in China.
So, repression –> self-immolations –> more repression.
Sure, that’s the fucking ticket, you geniuses.
RhZ
The VOA has now been implicated in encouraging young Tibetans to self-immolate, since many claim, after interrogation, they have heard the broadcasts of the self-immolations on the VOA.
Surely The Onion is more credible with the mouthpieces~
Umm, that’s extremely easy to verify, isn’t it? I mean, well I don’t go to the VOA site, but all those programs will be available, right there.
Oh, wait, VOA is blocked, so the target audience will never be able to confirm this obvious lie.
Much like all the other obvious lies…
RhZ, He also made a critical mistake: referring to the “nationalism” of a few bad apples, thus admitting that Tibet is a nation.
He probably said “minzuzhuyi”, and there is no controversy on the fact that Tibetans (and Uygurs) are a minzu. The problem is that the government admits and imposes another kind of nationalism, the one of the “zhonghua minzu” — an invented nationality/nation that is used to justify the dominance of the Han minzu and project their sense of racial superiority over the rest of the population.