Witnesses Unveil Yet More Brutality from China’s Security Forces

Based on more than 200 interviews with Tibetan refugees and visitors conducted immediately after they left China, alongside fresh, previously unreported, official Chinese sources, it details firsthand accounts of excessive force used in breaking up protests, proceeding to large-scale arbitrary arrests, brutalizing detainees, and torturing suspects in custody - atrocities that took place both during and after the protests.
"Dozens of eyewitness testimonies and the government's own sources show clearly the official willingness to use lethal force against unarmed protestors," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "This report decisively refutes the Chinese government's claim that it handled the protests in line with international standards and domestic laws."
The report furthermore suggests that, contrary to government claims, security forces opened fire indiscriminately on demonstrators in at least four separate incidents, including one in downtown Lhasa on March 14th. That such things have only come to light recently is down to the efforts of the Chinese government to pre-empt external scrutiny: at the time of the protests and some while after, the entire Tibetan plateau was effectively closed down with a heavy distribution of troops, all foreign visitors and journalists were expelled, travel to and within the region was restricted, telecommunications and the internet were either cut or monitored, and anyone suspected of reporting the incidents were arrested. China has rejected all calls for independent investigations into the events, not least those from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"The need for an international investigation into the situation in Tibet is a great as ever," Richardson said. "Abuses by security forces are unlikely to quell, and may even aggravate, the longstanding grievances that prompted the protests in the first place."