Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, Dec. 17: Chinese authorities in Kashi village, Kham Zachuka, Sershul County, Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, detained around 80 Tibetans following a protest against illegal gold-mining activities, with the whereabouts of seven individuals still unknown. The information was made public by Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha, Deputy Director and environmental researcher at the Tibet Policy Institute (TPI), during a press conference held on Tuesday in Dharamshala.
The detentions were carried out on November 6 at approximately 6:50 PM after local Tibetans confronted the miners and alerted township authorities to gold extraction discovered a day earlier, on November 5 at 2:11 PM, in an area known locally as Serkhok (Gold Valley).
Sources said that following the confrontation, Chinese authorities launched what residents described as “systematic, door-to-door arrests” in Kashi village. Those detained were reportedly transported to Sershul County for interrogation. The arrests were accompanied by a communications blackout, heightened security deployment, and severe restrictions on movement throughout the area.
Shortly after the arrests began, authorities reportedly convened a meeting warning residents not to speak about the incident, stating that it must “never be leaked to higher levels or to the outside world,” and that any disclosure would be treated as a serious “criminal offence”. Security forces are said to have entered homes, confiscated mobile phones, and carried out invasive searches. Armed police and military personnel have reportedly been deployed across roads and public spaces, detaining individuals even for perceived opposition to the mining activities.
Zamlha said that the situation in Kashi township has been described by locals as “extremely tense,” with villagers expressing deep fear for the safety of detained family members amid ongoing arrests, restricted movement, and communication.
Providing an update on the situation in December, Zamlha relayed accounts from sources alleging severe mistreatment of detainees during interrogation. According to these accounts, those detained were allegedly denied sleep and access to toilets, and were given only minimal food consisting of cold tsampa (barley) mixed with water once a day. Some detainees reportedly sustained broken ribs, developed kidney-related illnesses following severe beatings and torture in detention centres, or suffered serious physical and psychological trauma following intense interrogations.
Sources further alleged that some detainees who fell ill were released, while others were freed only after being forced to sign pledges promising not to protest against mining activities or share information externally. They were also reportedly compelled to sign statements accusing local Tibetans of assaulting Chinese officials without cause.
Surveillance measures were said to have been significantly expanded following the incident, with cameras, recording devices, and monitoring equipment installed in many homes. Medical examinations were reportedly conducted at Sershul County hospital, though full test results were not disclosed to the detainees.
Elderly residents were also reportedly detained, had their phone records thoroughly examined, and were warned against disseminating information before being sent home. Some were later summoned again for so-called “re-education” sessions, during which their mobile devices were manually checked to monitor the flow of information.
The gold-mining incident is not an isolated case. Mining activities in the region have reportedly taken place repeatedly since the 1990s. Locals allege that county and township officials, along with private business interests, have long facilitated environmentally destructive mining projects. Under the banner of “development,” authorities have also constructed dams and expanded mining operations, which residents say have caused serious damage to rivers, grasslands, and sacred landscapes.
No sooner the Chinese communists invaded Tibet, they did two things meticulously! First, the systemic destruction of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries which are the great Buddhist learning centres for thousands of monks and nun students and the repository Tibet’s religious and cultural heritage! The monks and nuns were forced to disrobe while thousands were murdered. The second was the plunder of Tibet’s extremely rich natural resources. With Tibet under Chinese military control, the Chinese went out on a full throttle rampage to extract Tibet’s rich natural resources! The whole reason why China illegally invaded and occupied Tibet is to pillage the monasteries which had centuries of wealth stored in them and to plunder Tibet’s rich natural resources such as gold, lithium, copper, rare earth, timber etc. In all there are some eighty different natural resources which was instrumental in making communist China rich! It was day light robbery! The Tibetans were mere spectators in watching all of Tibet’s resources carted away to communist China to feed the greed and the lavish lives of the communist elite! For the victims of Chinese colonisation and imperialism, Tibetans oppressed and mercilessly repressed through Chinese racism known in parlance as Han chauvinism, cultural genocide and ethnic cleaning. It was a total nightmare which have been described in the books written by Dr Tenzin Choedak, the late personnel physician of the present Dalai Lama, the late Venerable Palden Gyatso, Ane Pachen and Ama Adhe all of whom were prisoners for two or three decades and experienced torture, abuse and in the case of Ama Adhe and other women prisoners-rape! Ever since, Tibet was occupied, the Chinese communists went about plundering Tibet by extracting everything to ingratiate its insatiable greed for raw materials as the factory of the world. As a result, Tibet’s environment has suffered catastrophic degradation and ecological disaster in the form of super fast melting of prima frost, massive land slides and earth quakes! Tibet’s pristine environment has been destroyed, its rivers poisoned and pasture lands degraded. Massive dams to produce hydro power to serve the Chinese in China have destroyed ancient holy sites, monasteries and whole communities displaced from their ancestral land that has caused immense suffering to millions of Tibetans who were living freely in the vast stretch of the Tibetan highland. Today, these nomads are living in cloistered cement structures like ghost towns where they have lost hope, zest for life and even the will to live! What the Chinese communists have done to the Tibetans is no different from what Nazi Germany did to the Jews! This is not my judgement. I met a western woman in Europe who told me this during the time the Dalai Lama met German chancellor Angela Merkel in 2007! The Chinese communist regime and Hitler’s Nazi regime have many similarities! The Nazi ideology or National Socialism was a far-right totalitarian worldview centred on a belief in racial hierarchy, aggressive nationalism and the supreme authority of Adolf Hitler as the Fuhrer! On the other hand, the Chinese communist ideology is Socialism with Chinese characteristics, HAN CHAUVINISM, AGGRESSIVE NATIONALISM and the SUPRME AUTHORITY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY AND ITS TOTALITARIAN DICTATORSHIP! Owing to the racial hierarchy of the Nazis, they had no tolerance to other nationalities and their cultures! That’s why they murdered the Jews and homosexuals and transgenders and caused the Holocaust. Today, the CCP’s Han chauvinism is characterised by racial hierarchy. That’s why, it cannot countenance other cultures like the Tibetans and other subjugated people and are systematically destroyed! This clearly demonstrate that communist China is indeed a photo copy of Nazi Germany!
Like Nazi Germany, the CCP is a fascist entity. Therefore, it uses only force against its own people or nations to maintain its grip on power or in its dealings with its unfortunate populace under its subjugation. What is happening today in Zachuka has been happening ever since, Tibet was occupied by the terrorist Nazi regime of China! It’s nothing new! Most of occupied Tibet’s natural resources have been plundered. The removal of Tibetan nomads from their ancestral land were mostly for the purpose of mining in these far flung areas and also for political control. The CCP is a rogue state which has no rule of law and no citizen is protected by any law. The CCP is the law unto itself. That is why you cannot fight for the rights of your land since the CCP claims it owns the whole land including your own home! It is the most vicious, insanely cruel and callous regime alive. Remember, the cruelty of locking the people for three long years with pad locks on their doors and even wielding them for good! That is the true nature of the demonic CCP! Tibetans must not remain docile against such a demonic force! We are a people who carved out an empire that was equal to any other empires. We were a warlike race pacified by Buddhism. We must fight and regain our warrior race tradition to save our country and our people. The Chinese terrorist regime is faltering as its economy is dipping from a point of no return! As the economy suffers, the young and old are getting frustrated for lack of jobs while the elite are indulging sexual dalliances with in hundreds of mistresses. The system is so corrupt, they are intending to send a man to the moon to feed their ego but when the seven tower building in Hong Kong caught fire, they didn’t have a single helicopter to douse the flames that was ravaging the building like wild fire in the prairies! All their bridges, towers, dams and high rise buildings and wind turbines are falling down like tofus! They bring chaos and misfortune where ever they set their foot! They invested heavily in Africa but Africa has had enough of Chinese corruption, mismanagement and illegal mining activities. Like occupied Tibet, they have polluted Africa’s rivers and land and that’s why Chinese mining companies including civilians are being kicked out of Madagascar, Mozambique, Angola and Nigeria! Chinese shops are looted and burned and civilians killed but the CCP is hapless to do anything against the wrath of the African people! In Asia, it is not trusted by anybody except perhaps the Pakistanis and the Nepalis! It is not even approached by Thailand and Cambodia to mediate in their territorial dispute! It shows, the CCP is just a school yard bully who is intensely disliked by almost every country in the world!