Restrictions and surveillance increases in Garchung Village in Dathang Township, Driru County in Nagchu.
Photo: TCHRD
The county of Driru has now been placed under additional Chinese surveillance. A new notification to various “convenience police posts” in Lhasa and Nagchu has asked officers to monitor the whereabouts of all Nagchu Tibetans. According to Human Rights Watch, there are 676 “convenience police check points” in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (as of July 2012). Officers man these around the clock. The notification seeks to place Nagchu Tibetans in Lhasa under twenty-four hour police surveillance, to make it easier to arrest potential “trouble makers”.
According to the notification, information about Nagchu Tibetans is to be passed from checkpoint to checkpoint via code. The code for Driru is ‘A’, Suo county ‘B’ and Bachen county ‘C’. The secret code for male Nagchu Tibetans is “male tourists” and female Nagchu Tibetans is “female tourists”. To quote from a rough translation of the official Chinese notification, obtained by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy:
“How to Send Secret Codes: For instance, if convenience police station no. 89 learns that three male individuals from Driru County have entered the area under convenience police station no. 91, police station no. 89 must relay this information to station no. 91 through mobile handsets by saying: ‘Station No. 91, three male tourists from “A” have entered your area, please extend hospitality!’ “
The notification ends on a warning for police officers to be careful while using the codes on mobile handsets, and to remember that “all suspected persons must be subjected to thorough search and vigilance.”
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