February 2017: Incident report
Control, coercion and monitoring by police while reporting in Ganzi Tibetan prefecture in Sichuan, Feb. 18, at Yarchen Gar monastic camp in Baiyu County.
After arriving at the parking and walking for an hour, we were rounded up by plain clothes police at 3pm. They arrived in a police car while we were entering a restaurant. Quite aggressive Tibetan agents, they said we should not be there, that we needed to register. We said that is ok, and were given time to eat. Then we were told we can’t stay in Yarchen as there is no hotel — which was also ok. At this point we were told we need to talk to the foreign department of Baiyu County. We were taken to the police HQ / management committee of Larung gar, had small talks with management and were offered a dinner. At around 7 pm we were taken back into a room with a lot of police agents. We were lectured on the rules we must respect and told we must register. We said that was fine, and asked — if we do that, then why are you bothering us? We were told: You are welcome, but you must respect Chinese law and leave tomorrow by 9am. The usual Kafkaesque dialogue. After spending the night, we left the next morning by 9am, with a police officer accompanying by car. We stopped by restaurants on the way. Eventually, as we talked to nuns there, police more forcefully asked that we left the county, which we did.
The next day we arrived in Ganzi City: police were there, waiting. They let us go into town but eventually barged in in front of a hotspring where we were showering. They wanted to ask about our plans for Ganzi. We said we would go back on the road to Chengdu and would not stay the night there.
The next morning, Feb. 20, we left early with a driver for a day trip. When we returned, police and Tibetan staff (maybe foreign department, maybe united front) came to talk, asking where we went. They pretended to be nice and helpful. But they were obviously angry we had left in the morning without being monitored. We said we were going back to Chengdu the next morning. They said they would accompany, and we left the next morning with them following in a car without a number plate. We were followed until we had exited Ganzi prefecture.
In Chengdu on the morning of Feb. 22, we were followed by a black car while going to a lunch with the French consul. On Feb. 24 in Beijing, my freelance assistant and translator was asked to come to tea with the police.
February 2017: Incident report – submitted by Brice Pedroletti.