DANGEROUS CROSSING: - International Campaign for Tibet

INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET
and the threat of deportation. “These days the police are checking Tibetans
on the street for their ID,” explained a group of young Tibetans
in their early twenties in Boudhanath. “This happens mostly in the late
evening. If you speak good Nepali it is possible to pretend be a Sherpa,
Tamang or Gurung, and the police will let you go. But newcomers who
cannot speak Nepali are being taken to the police station and put in
prison until they pay their bail,” they said. 204 Young male Tibetans are
particularly targeted by police for arrest and detention, partly because
they fit the protester stereotype, but it is perhaps no coincidence that
the young also tend to be undocumented and thus less able to protect
themselves.
A Tibetan source in Kathmandu described Tibetan detentions as a
“game” that combines politics, Chinese pressure, lack of documents
and corrupt police officers. If Tibetans are arrested for lack of papers
or planning protests, others can go immediately to the police station
and offer a bribe to the policeman in charge. If he has yet to log the
detained Tibetan’s name in the log book, then the bribe will usually be
enough to set the Tibetan free. The same source told ICT that this tactic
does not usually work when the arrests are more public in nature, as on
March 10, or if they are to serve as political currency with China.
On February 17, 2010, 14 young Tibetans (five females and nine males)
were detained by Nepal police early in the morning in a noodle café
in Thamel, the heart of Kathmandu’s tourist area. One of the Tibetans
told ICT: “Suddenly a group of police with a truck came and told us to
get in. They did not give us time to ask why; they were using wooden
sticks and started beating us. At the police station, they locked us in a
cell for the rest of the night. They started asking us about our identity
cards and where we were going. They thought we were going to do a
protest. They searched our bodies but found no Tibetan flags or other
evidence. Later we managed to contact our families and friends. But in
order to secure our release we had to pay.” 205
While these young Tibetans were able to secure bail, it is of great concern
to ICT that the duration of detentions of Tibetans has also substantially
increased since 2008. Where previously Tibetans were kept
for up to 24 hours, they can now expect to stay for weeks in indefinite
detention. In several cases, related more expressly to political protests,
this situation has prompted Nepali human rights advocates to seek the
intervention of the Supreme Court.
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