Issue 18 — Occupation, Protest, and Prison
Under the cover of darkness, the monks were evicted. Amid the freezing temperatures of late February, they knelt, prostrated and wept before a group of Chinese police officers, their sacred red robes ablaze against the black state uniforms.
In videos captured and sent out of eastern occupied Tibet — an act that in and of itself can warrant jail time — monks and citizens pleaded to protect a life-sustaining river, to preserve their ancient monasteries and to save the tight-knit communities of Derge, in the mountainous Kham region. But by day, and by night, outside of the monasteries and inside the town centers, monks, nuns and residents were arrested one by one. In the following weeks, the list of alleged crimes would run long, but on Feb. 23 more than a thousand Tibetans were arrested for protesting.
Drimey, a Tibetan in exile who has asked to be identified by his first name only, watched these videos in horror. Monks are highly respected in Tibet, but what he saw — desperate people begging on their knees — was saddening, almost denigrating, to someone from a highly reverent culture. Hailing from the town of Wongpo Tok (one of the sites of the arrests), Drimey crossed the Himalayas on foot in 1999 to pursue Tibetan and religious studies not accessible in his home under occupation. Now, he is watching from afar as his community is criminalized, his town is submerged and his religion is desecrated.
“I have known those mountains and those roads,” he said through a translator. “I have known everything.”
About a week before the arrests in early February, just across the mountain from Wongpo Tok, some 300 people gathered outside the Derge County Seat — home to the Chinese Communist Party’s provincial office — to protest the construction of the Kamtok Hydropower project. Slated to straddle the banks of the Drichu River, the headwaters of Asia’s 3,915-mile Yangtze River, the hydropower dam will not only strangle the river’s winding route but forcibly displace thousands of Tibetans. According to a 2019 report from the International Campaign for Tibet, the hydropower project is one of 25 dams set to carve through the Tibetan plateau and generate “clean” electricity.
A parallel situation is also unfolding in Amdo county where the Chinese government recently announced plans to relocate the historic Atsok Monastery and surrounding communities to make way for another large-scale hydropower project. Tibetans told Radio Free Asia that in the wake of this news, residents gathered at the monastery to pray while monk leaders were told to accept the relocation plan and promise not to protest.
“These huge dams are not for Tibetans,” said Dr. Lobsang Yangtso, the programme and environment coordinator at International Tibet Network, a global coalition of Tibet-centered organizations. “It’s a colonial mentality where these resources are to be consumed by mainland China.”
Read the full story at Waging Nonviolence
I wrote this story in early April while I was deep in finalizing my forthcoming Philippines investigation. Thanks to a tip from a fellow journalist, I had access to a folder of videos showing monks and lay people in occupied Tibet beaten, arrested, and eventually jailed for protesting a hydropower project that would submerge their homes, displace their communities, and destroy their monasteries.
My Philippines story focuses on similar themes: violence against environmental defenders, resistance to hydropower projects and other extractive industries, and the continued impacts of colonialism and global militarism. While the state seeks to criminalize journalism in the Philippines, mostly through repressive “anti-terror” laws, in occupied Tibet, even those who sent the protest videos out of the country face arrest, jail time, and fines.
Because of that, I was unable to speak with activists in Derge, the site of the protests and the dam, and relied on organizers, researchers, and Tibetans living in exile to help explain what Tibetans are opposing and to some extent, how they went about it. While this isn’t the way I usually work, most of my work prioritizes those on the front lines, reporting in a region under extreme censorship leaves few other options without great risk to sources already risking everything.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Tibet is on the frontlines of the global climate crisis. The 1000+ arrested in Kham Dege over the construction of a new destructive dam demonstrates that reality. Sign the pledge in our bio to stand with Tibetan climate defenders.
One of the key points that emerged from this story is that protesters in occupied Tibet are environmental defenders living in one of the most climate impacted countries in the world. The criminalization they experience at the hands of the state, no less by a country trying to market itself as a climate leader, should be a concern and a rallying cry among climate activists around the world.
Environmental activism is only becoming more dangerous. Corporations are increasingly supported by government policies that criminalize protest and protect private industry over public demand. These videos, these testimonies of Tibetans protesting under state repression, are a lesson in organizing and a reminder of the risk of being an environmental defender in 2024.
While I subscribe to fewer newsletters than I once used to — so I appreciate you reading this! — I wanted to share a few that I enjoy in an effort to promote the work of those focused on foreign policy/human rights/environmental issues/the global war machine:
Interruptrr — A weekly roundup up of what’s happening in the world with a focus on women’s voices in foreign policy. (My work has also been featured in Interruptrr as you can see below)
Solidaritas — a fortnightly newsletter on gender equality, feminism, and LGBTQ+ & women’s rights in Asia and the Pacific.
Thank you for reading this issue of Defender.
Last time I wrote a newsletter I was deep in finalizing an investigation that’s coming out in June. Well, it’s the end of May and just a few days ago I wrapped up a beloved project that swallowed a year of my life. I will be sharing more about the process and, of course, the story, but for the past few days, I’ve basically been catching up on sleep, doing crosswords, and staring at a blank wall as much as I can.
More to come…
As always, you can follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or apparently TikTok where I’ll try to post more frequently, too.
Rage On. ❤️🔥