A crowd of Chinese migrant workers demonstrated on October 26 in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. They were asking to be allowed to return home, according to British Tibetologist Robbie Barnett, who took to Twitter.
In a series of tweets based on videos and comments from Tibetans, he says these workers from different provinces of China were seeking to leave central Lhasa after experiencing seventy-four days of continuous confinement there as part of the struggle. against Covid-19, without being able to receive any income. From the start of the demonstration, armed police were filmed arriving on site in peace, says Robbie Barnett.
The rally lasted until the evening, can we see on a video found on one of the Chinese social networks and reposted on Twitter (which is not allowed in China).
Later, scuffles opposed the demonstrators to employees responsible for enforcing confinement – in protective anti-Covid clothing (“tall whites”, according to the term consecrated in Chinese) – and to the police, according to another video.
First demonstrations since 2008
According to the website Radio Free Asia, some of the migrants stranded in Lhasa for two and a half months complain of not being able to return home, but also of not being allowed to go out to buy food or other daily necessities. The site, which published in its Tibetan section a video showing the demonstration during the evening, specifies: “We hear in the crowd both Tibetan and Mandarin, but we cannot discern what is being said.”
These demonstrations are the first known since the 2008 uprising, during which dozens of Tibetans were killed by the police. “According to some sources on the spot, demonstrators warned the authorities that they were ready to ‘set on fire’ if the confinement was not lifted”, indicates the site. This could be a reference to the series of immolations that mourned Tibet from 2009.