January 31, 2023
Executive Summary
Since October 2021, residents of Drago County in Tibet have been under siege, with their cultural and religious heritage coming under attack and locals being detained, tortured and subjected to “re-education”.
Located in the historical Tibetan province of Kham, Drago County is known for its strong sense of Tibetan identity and resistance against the ruling Chinese government and has been subject to interventions by occupying Chinese authorities since at least 2008, with notable crackdowns in 2009 and 2012. This report provides new details about both crackdowns.
The demolitions in Drago targeted sites and objects of central importance to the religious and cultural life of the local community. Most notably, these include three colossal statues of the Buddha that were destroyed, evoking the Taliban’s destruction of Buddhist statues in Afghanistan 20 years earlier. Other sites and items that were destroyed include:
- a Buddhist school
- a building housing 45 giant prayer wheels;
- Residence of a revered spiritual leader
- Drago monastery’s prayer flags, which were taken down and burned
This report provides new evidence of the scale of destruction, the consequences for local Tibetans, and an intensified level of securitisation that local Tibetans have described as a second ‘Cultural Revolution’.
At least ten local Tibetans in Drago County were detained and tortured during the period covered in this report, sometimes for reasons as minor as showing distress at the demolitions. The detainees were subjected to interrogation and severe beatings, with a number of them falling unconscious due to severity of torture, and one of them, a woman, being drenched with cold water in freezing winter weather.
For the first time, the report documents a new extrajudicial facility used for political ‘education’, and information about a military base and prison. This evidence of an extrajudicial facility adds to previous reports of Tibetans – particularly released prisoners and other “key persons” monitored by Public Security Bureaus – being arbitrarily detained and “re-educated” in Tibet without any formal charges, and after the formal abolition of the 56-year-old system of Re-education-Through-Labour2 in 2013.
New information about security crackdown in the months following the 2012 mass protest is also presented in this report, including primary schools being temporarily used as places to detain and torture protesters, and a police shooting at an entire family of a protester and their dog at their home, and dragging bodies downhill on a motorbike.
Tibet Watch has found that the crackdown on freedom of religion and culture in Drago escalated under Wang Dongsheng, the newly nominated Party Secretary of Drago, who was previously involved in mass demolitions and expulsions of thousands of monks and nuns in a famous Tibetan Buddhist Institute called Larung Gar.
The findings in this report demonstrate that, at a minimum, the acts of the police and local authorities have violated Tibetans’ rights to self-determination and freedom of religion, education, expression and assembly. They have also restricted Tibetans’ freedom to take part in cultural life, as well as their rights to privacy, liberty, security of person and freedom from torture.
