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<\/p>\nPolice in China\u2019s southwestern Yunnan province on Monday attacked and beat a group of Tibetan women who had gathered to protest copper mining on land considered sacred by residents living near the site, sources said.<\/p>\n
The protest came after Chinese authorities dismissed repeated appeals by Tibetans living in Dechen (in Chinese, Diqing) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture\u2019s Dechen (Deqin) county to halt the excavations, a local source told RFA\u2019s Tibetan Service on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Mining by the Chinese Huicheng minerals company on Ganglha mountain near Mata village in Dechen county\u2019s Yamen township has left the mountain already scarred by digging, with \u201cextracted ore and waste piled up by the village,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mata residents are worried over police warnings of more severe punishment if they continue with their protests.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn June 30, the women of the local Tibetan community marched to the site and shouted for the mining work to stop,\u201d the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe armed police and paramilitary forces who were present did not fire on the women, but instead attacked and beat them,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cTwo were beaten especially severely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLater, some men from the Tibetan community joined the protest, and they were taken away and detained.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe local Tibetans have called on the authorities to release those who were detained, warning that otherwise they will resort to other means of protest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Safety, religious concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n Tibetan areas of China have become an important source of minerals needed for China\u2019s economic growth, and mining operations have led to frequent standoffs with Tibetans who accuse Chinese firms of disrupting sites of spiritual significance and polluting the environment as they extract local wealth. “Tibetans in Mata have urged the authorities several times to stop the mining out of concern for the community\u2019s safety and the sacredness of the mountain, but their concerns were never addressed,\u201d RFA’s source said.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead, the Chinese miners vowed to continue their work even if the local people objected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Huicheng has been found to be operating in the area with a \u201cfake license,\u201d though it has claimed official approval to extract minerals, mainly copper, from the area, according to the source.<\/p>\n Separately, a Tibetan living in exile confirmed the police attack on Tibetan protesters at the mining site, citing contacts in the region.<\/p>\n \u201cRecently, new rich deposits of copper were discovered in the valley of Mata village, and Chinese authorities built a road leading to the mine.\u201d<\/p>\n After local Tibetans resisted the expanded mining, \u201cover a hundred armed police and paramilitary forces were deployed to the area, and they beat and detained Tibetan protesters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThey also told the Tibetans they had orders to kill them if necessary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be beaten is nothing,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cEven more severe punishments may be given to the Tibetans if they continue to resist the mining work.\u201d<\/p>\n Sporadic demonstrations challenging Chinese rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008, with 131 Tibetans to date setting themselves ablaze to oppose Beijing\u2019s rule and call for the return of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.<\/p>\n Reported by RFA\u2019s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Police in China\u2019s southwestern Yunnan province on Monday attacked and beat a group of Tibetan women who had gathered to protest copper mining on land considered sacred by residents living near the site, sources said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2\"](\"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/2.jpg\")
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