Tibet

First images of the convicted Tibetans

Julien — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:05:57 +0200

Thirty Tibetans accused of taking part in the riots last month have been convicted today with sentences ranging from three years in jail to life imprisonment. One of our Observers has sent us the first images of the trial, made public by the state press agency Xinhua, just as the sentences were handed out.

According to the Chinese TV channel CCTV, the trial lasted all day and was open to the public. These photos show ten of the thirty Tibetans who were sentenced today in Lhasa. The second image is particularly interesting - a man sitting in the front row of the public benches sporting traditional Tibetan dress. Is he a pro-Beijing Tibetan? The image has been carefully chosen, perhaps to show that - just as the authorities insisted from the very beginning of the crisis - Tibetan people support the Chinese government and only a violent minority took part in the riots. We will try to find out more and update this post soon.

"Putting out the flame is really going to upset the Chinese people"

Julien — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:29:07 +0200

The Olympic flame had to be put out for half an hour during its tour around Paris because of havoc wreaked by mainly pro-Tibetan protesters. ChinaWolf, who set up a YouTube channel to "defend the Chinese reputation", explains to us why he thinks the protests were unacceptable.

Yahoo and MSN helping to root out Tibetan rioters

Julien — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:29:07 +0100

The 'most wanted' on Yahoo's homepage this morning

Yahoo! China pasted a "most wanted" poster across its homepage today in aid of the police's witch-hunt for 24 Tibetans accused of taking part in the recent riots. MSN China made the same move, although it didn't go as far as publishing the list on its homepage.

UPDATE 1 : We spotted these photos on MSN and Yahoo! on March 21st at 3.30pm (Beijing time). This article was published at 5pm. The photos have been removed from the portals between 8pm and 10pm.

UPDATE 2 (24.03.08 / 10.15am Paris time) : Following this report, Yahoo! sent us the following statement :"Contrary to media reports, Yahoo! Inc. is not displaying images on its web sites of individuals wanted by Chinese authorities in connection with the recent unrest in Tibet." In this statement, Yahoo! says that the parent company Yahoo Inc did not publish these images. The company does not deny that Yahoo! China has published the "wanted" posters. This is a common line of defence by Yahoo!, which tries to put the entire responsibility of its Chinese operations on its Chinese partner Alibaba. See bellow a printscreen of the Yahoo! China (cn.yahoo.com) home page on March 21st.

First pictures of Tibet killings

Julien — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:56:55 +0100

Chinese authorities have so far reported 13 dead since the beginning of the incidents while Tibetan activists say that at least one hundred people have been killed. These amateur photos, which we're the first to publish, contradict the official Chinese statement.

The photos were taken at the Kirti Monastery (in the county of Aba, Sichuan province, near Tibet) and retrieved by the Free Tibet Campaign. According to the organisation, they were taken after a demonstration of hundreds of people initiated by monks. The police are said to have used teargas, before shooting at the crowd and killing between 13 and 30 people according to eye witnesses quoted by the organisation. Please note that because there are no journalists in the area it's impossible to have this information verified.

CNN accused of bending the truth about Tibet

Julien — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:50:41 +0100

This image is all over Chinese discussion boards. Web-users are saying that the photo, published by CNN, proves that the American channel is manipulating information about the Tibet crisis in order to cast China in a negative light.

In comments posted on Hong Kong and Chinese discussion forums like Shanghaining and 28discuss.com, Chinese Internet users accuse CNN of editing images of the unrest in Tibet in order to omit evidence of Tibetans acting violently. The critics say that in the version of the photo published by CNN (on the left), for example, CNN intentionally cropped out the Tibetan rioters who appear to be throwing stones at a military van. CNN denies the allegation, saying the image in question was cropped because of space constraints on the CNN Web site and that the organization's coverage has been impartial (see full statement below).

"We've hardly got any photos of the repression"

Julien — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:32:59 +0100

Photo taken in Lhasa today

Photos of the chaos in Lhasa are slowly finding their way to us. We asked a young Tibetan activist to explain how the Chinese government is managing to restrict information from leaving the country.

UPDATE (13 March 7.30pm): We published the first amateur images of events on the Observers site. Press agencies have now distributed new photos of the events, finally managing to get their documents out of the country.

The first image of the violence in Tibet

Julien — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:18:59 +0100

Protests which started on Monday 10 are still raging in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. Today, events seem to have taken a turn for the worse, as demonstrated in this photo taken by a tourist and retrieved by France 24. This is one of the only photos to have made it through the Chinese censors. Beijing has effectively established a blackout on all information about the event. There are even fewer images available than when violence broke out at protests in Burma in September last year. Until today, the only shots published of the demonstrations in Lhasa are those from two Belgian tourists travelling in Tibet. We’ll continue to follow the situation throughout the day on the Observers.