“The first thing I saw was a lot of soldiers and police officers beating the crowd with electric batons and then arresting demonstrators and loading them onto trucks”.
“I saw that they were firing straight at people”.
“I saw up to 30 people crowded into 30-40 square foot cells. There was no space to sit down so detainees had to stand most of the day and night. The cells had no toilets but prisoners were not taken out and had to relieve themselves inside the cell. They were given one bowl of rice congee a day. Many were subjected to beatings”.
These excerpts were taken from three of the 203 eyewitness statements recounting the abuse inflicted by Chinese security forces and paramilitary groups (all belonging to the Han ethnic group) during protests staged in Tibet in 2008 and over the last two years.
Independent organisation Human Rights Watch has compiled these statements in a report denouncing acts of violence inflicted on the women, children, monks and nuns who assembled in Lhasa in March 2008 and which very few people know about. According to its authors “the human rights violations that took place were much more severe than anyone might have imagined.” The report also states that “dissenters and their families are still going missing and continue to be the victims of violence, imprisonment and persecution.”

Click here to download the full report