By Tibetan Review
September 17, 2024
Credits @FFHR.CZ
(TibetanReview.net, Sep16’24) – Ahead of the country’s national day on Oct 1, China’s security chief has issued a call for tightening security in the Tibetan territories under Chinese rule during a four-day inspection tour last week.
Maintaining stability and guarding against independence activities are the top priorities for security personnel in Tibetan areas, the scmp.com Sep 16 cited Chen Wenqing, head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (CPLC), the ruling Communist Party’s top security body, as saying.
The CPCL acts as the overseer and coordinator of all legal enforcement authorities, including the Ministries of State Security, Public Security and Justice, as well as the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate. Chen has said the security forces must “resolutely crack down on separatist and destructive activities”.
He has said the security authorities must also “resolutely manage religious affairs, while resolutely protecting normal religious activities”, so as to “prevent risks, crack down on crimes, and maintain stability.”
Chen has made these remarks during his trip that included stops in the Tibet autonomous region (TAR) as well as the Ganzi (Tibetan: Kardze) Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province.
The four-day tour, which ended on Sep 13, was stated to be Chen’s first regional inspection trip since the party’s policymaking third plenum in July, coming in the lead-up to China’s National Day on Oct 1.
This year China will mark the day as the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and security is being tightened in the sensitive Tibetan territories which include Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai province, and areas that now constitute parts of Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces.
During his trip, Chen was stated to have visited security units in the Tibetan cities of Lhasa and Chamdo, getting updates on operations in the region, the report said, citing China’s official Xinhua news agency.
In Ganzi, he was stated to have presided over a meeting on “anti-secession work”, and to have given instructions on maintaining stability.
With nearly 80 % of the prefecture’s 1.1 million residents being Tibetan, Ganzi is stated to be the second-largest such community in the PRC, after the TAR.
Chen has also ordered security personnel to carry out more propaganda and education campaigns to increase awareness of national identity among the people of all ethnic groups.
The report said Chen had cast the Tibetan security net wider in recent years to include more surrounding regions with large Tibetan populations.
It noted that China’s top judges and prosecutors had also made their rounds of TAR.
Zhang Jun, the president of the Supreme People’s Court, had visited Tibetan courts last week and said that it was necessary to hand down tough punishment to keep up the pressure on “violent terrorism, ethnic separatism and other serious criminal crimes”, the report noted.
Also, Ying Yong, head of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, had inspected public prosecutors’ offices in TAR earlier this month.
He too was stated to have stressed the need for prosecutors to “harshly crack down on all kinds of separatist infiltration, sabotage activities and crimes endangering national security in accordance with the law”.
China deems as separatist not only people who call for or campaign for Tibet’s independence but also virtually anyone who criticize its policy towards the Tibetan people, as shown by its record of their imprisonments.
Source: tibetanreview.net
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