110 HRES 1075 IH: Condemning the Chinese Government’s U.S. House of Representatives 2008-04-03 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

IV 110th CONGRESS 2d Session H. RES. 1075 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES April 3, 2008 Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. Bishop of Georgia, Mr. Wolf, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Pitts, Mr. Chabot, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Moore of Wisconsin, Mr. Rohrabacher, and Mr. Walsh of New York) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs RESOLUTION Condemning the Chinese Government’s unwarranted violence against Tibetan protesters, the Chinese Government’s use of Internet censorship and surveillance to control news of the protests, and urging compliance with Chinese criminal law and to provide information and access to all persons detained.

Whereas the Tibetan people have maintained throughout their long history a national identity distinct from that of the Chinese people; Whereas, in 1950, the Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) invaded Tibet, and, in 1951, incorporated Tibet into the PRC against the will of the Tibetan people; Whereas on March 10, 1959, after an unsuccessful popular uprising against the rule of the Chinese Government, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, went into exile in India, where he has since maintained a Government-in-Exile; Whereas since Tibet’s incorporation into China, the Chinese Government has subjected the Tibetan people to undemocratic rule and myriad human rights violations, similar to, but in some cases more severe than, those to which the Chinese people and other peoples who live in the PRC have been subjected; Whereas the 2007 Country Report on Human Rights Practices of the United States Department of State summarized the situation in Tibet as follows: The government’s human rights record in Tibetan areas of China remained poor, and the level of repression of religious freedom increased. Authorities continued to commit serious human rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, and house arrest and surveillance of dissidents. The government restricted freedom of speech, academic freedom, and freedom of movement. The government adopted new regulations and other measures to control the practice of Tibetan Buddhism, including measures that require government approval to name all reincarnated lamas. The preservation and development of the unique religious, cultural, and linguistic heritage of Tibetan areas and the protection of the Tibetan people’s other fundamental human rights continued to be of concern.; Whereas the 2007 Annual Report of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China found that the Chinese Government has enforced on Tibetan Buddhists an increased level of repression of the freedom of religion and that the government is establishing greater control over the Tibetan rural population by implementing programs that will bring to an end the traditional lifestyle of the Tibetan nomadic herder; Whereas the Chinese Government humiliates the religious feeling of Tibetan Buddhists by requiring Buddhist monks and Tibetan officials to write denunciations of the Dalai Lama; Whereas, in 2005, Zhang Qingli, Secretary of the Communist Party of the Tibet Autonomous Region, revealed the Chinese Government’s attitude toward Tibet when he stated, The Communist Party is like the parent to the Tibetan people, and it is always considerate about what the children need, and, The Central Party Committee is the real Buddha for Tibetans; Whereas the Chinese Government is altering the ethnic and cultural character of Tibet by using direct and indirect incentives to encourage overwhelming numbers of non-Tibetans to move to Tibet and a settlement program that disrupts the lives of nomadic Tibetans by requiring them to settle in fixed communities; Whereas, as a result of these actions of the Chinese Government, since March 10, 2008, many Tibetans have been peacefully and publicly protesting, so that between March 10 and April 1, 2008, there have been reports of over forty Tibetan protests across a wide geographic region, including the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Tibetan areas of the neighboring provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan; Whereas the peaceful protests have often been marches led by Tibetan Buddhist monks or candlelight vigils, and protesters have called for independence and expressed their support for the Dalai Lama, including his return to Tibet; Whereas some Tibetans have also rioted and behaved aggressively and violently, destroying property and assaulting, beating, and sometimes killing non-Tibetans; Whereas Chinese authorities have responded to these protests and riots with unwarranted aggression and violence, so that by April 1, 2008, authorities have shot and killed over 140 Tibetans, detained several thousand, and put thousands of Buddhist monks under effective house arrest; Whereas the Chinese Government has censored news of these protests in China, blocked Web sites to prevent uncensored news from reaching the Chinese people, including the Web sites of CNN, BBC, Google News, Yahoo!, and YouTube, and some foreign journalists in China have reported that their e-mail service has been interrupted; Whereas the Chinese Government has used its state-controlled media to present a distorted version of these protests in order to raise Chinese national feeling against the Tibetans, tightly focusing its coverage on acts of violence committed by some Tibetans, but not mentioning Tibetan grievances or that authorities have shot and killed many Tibetans; and Whereas China’s Internet Surveillance Bureau has warned Tibetans about sharing factual news about the protests, We inform Internet users that it is forbidden to post news about Tibetan events . . . From today, the Internet Surveillance Bureau will carry out filtering and censorship . . . anyone infringing this ban will have their I.P. address sent to the police who will take the necessary steps: Now, therefore, be it

That— (1)the House of Representatives— (A)condemns the Chinese Government’s dispersion and detention of peaceful Tibetan protesters; (B)condemns the Chinese Government’s policy of using the Internet and news media as a tool of censorship, surveillance, and state control of society; (C)rejects as unfounded the Chinese Government’s charge that the Dalai Lama has organized the protests; (D)expresses its admiration for the spiritual leadership provided by the Dalai Lama; (E)expresses its admiration for the bravery of peaceful Tibetan protesters who have risked harassment, punishment, physical harm, and imprisonment to draw attention to the egregious injustices the Chinese Government has visited upon the Tibetan people; and (F)expresses its solidarity with the Tibetan people; and (2)it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States should— (A)call upon the Chinese Government to permit peaceful protest; (B)call upon the Chinese Government to carefully distinguish between peaceful protesters, who should not be punished, and rioters, who should be properly restrained and whose cases should be adjudicated in accord with legal processes that respect international human rights agreements and international norms of legal process; (C)continue to call upon the Chinese Government to cease blocking Internet Web sites, cease interfering with journalists’ e-mail services, permit fair coverage by the news media of events in Tibet, and dismantle the Internet Surveillance Bureau; (D)call upon the Chinese Government to comply with Chinese criminal law and the laws of legal procedure, and to provide details about each Tibetan detained or charged with a crime, including each person’s name, the charges (if any) against each person, and to allow access by diplomats and international observers to the trials of Tibetans charged with protest-related crimes; (E)call upon the Chinese Government to engage in serious and substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama and his representatives over the future of Tibet; and (F)call upon the Chinese Government to abide by the international human rights agreements which it has signed.