I Saw It with My Own Eyes: Abuses by Chinese Security Forces in Tibet, 2008-2010

More than two years after protests—the largest and most sustained in decades—erupted across the Tibetan plateau in March 2008, the Chinese government has yet to explain the circumstances that led to dozens of clashes between protesters and police. It has not addressed how its security forces responded to the unrest—including allegedly using lethal force against Tibetan protesters, and abandoning Lhasa’s city-center to protesters and looters for several hours on March 14. Nor has it revealed the fate of hundreds of Tibetans arrested during the protests, or disclosed how many it has detained, sentenced, still holds pending trial, or has sentenced to extrajudicial forms of detention, such as Re-education Through Labor (RTL).
This report, the first comprehensive examination of the crackdown, is based solely on official Chinese sources and eyewitness accounts that Human Rights Watch gathered in more than 200 interviews with Tibetans between March 2008 and April 2010. It finds that the scale of human rights violations related to suppressing the protests was far greater than previously believed, and that Chinese forces broke international law—including prohibitions against disproportionate use of force, torture and arbitrary detention, as well as the right to peaceful assembly—despite government claims to the contrary. It also reveals that violations continue, including disappearances, wrongful convictions and imprisonment, persecution of families, and the targeting people suspected of sympathizing with the protest movement.