July 13:
China’s security forces fired shots and usedteargas to disperse over a thousand Tibetans that had gathered in Nyagchuka (Yajiang) county, Sichuan to demand the body of recently-deceased, well-respected Buddhist monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche be returned. Security forces are enforcing a travel ban and blocking the road to the area. Before his arrest, the Rinpoche had founded schools for nomad children and homes for the elderly, had worked to protect local forests, and fought to preserve Tibetan culture. Rinpoche died in prison at age 65 in the thirteenth year of a life sentence. He was imprisoned in 2002 after being convicted on a bombing charge. Two weeks ago, when the monk’s sisters traveled to Chengdu to visit him in prison, authorities told them he died. “Nobody can say for sure whether Rinpoche died this year or last year, or even where he died. During the last two years, no one was allowed to see him,” a relative told Radio Free Asia.
July 22:
Australian police arrested eight Tibetan protesters who stormed the Chinese consulate in Sydney, including one person who scaled a flagpole to pull down the Chineseflag,Reuters reports. The group of fifty Tibetan students and former political prisoners were holding a peaceful protest outside the consulate's gates to protest Rinpoche’s death the death in prison. When the gates opened to let a truck through, several protesters ran into the forecourt. They were charged with trespassing, a spokeswoman for New South Wales state police said. One of the eight, a 38-year-old woman, was also charged with assault for attacking a consular official. The deceased monk’s sister said authorities had cremated his body against his family's wishes and in violation of Tibetan Buddhist traditions.
July 23:
A court in northern Myanmar has sentenced 153 Chinese to life imprisonment for illegal logging, illegal entry and drug possession. The Myitkyina district court in Kachin State also gave 10 years in prison to two minors for violating the law against destroying public property, Kyodo reports. The Chinese were arrested in a series of raids on unlawful logging operations along the border Myanmar shares with Yunnan. China has filed protest with Myanmar and requested the offenders be returned immediately. Myanmar, which is rich in premium hardwood such as teak, banned the export of raw wood in April 2014 to conserve its forests. In January, continued logging and timber-smuggling to China prompted Myanmar officials to crack down on illegal loggers in Kachin. More than 400 trucks and other vehicles were also seized in the raids.
July 24:
Japan’s Mitsubishi Materials apologized to those Chinese it used as forced laborers during World War II, established a monument to commemorate their suffering, and compensated them and their relatives 100,000 yuan ($16,100) for each worker. In a statement, Mitsubishi said its predecessor, Mitsubishi Mining Co., forced 39,000 Chinese laborers to Japan. Some 3,765 worked in poor conditions, and 722 died, the official China Daily reports. Mitsubishi said it accepted the company's responsibility, recognized that the human rights of Chinese forced labors were violated, and extended its sincere apologies to those Chinese workers and their relatives.
July 26:
Nine members of "Almighty God," known in Chinese as Quannengshen, have been jailed for between 18 months and three years in Zigui County, Hubei amid a crackdown on the banned organization, the Global Times reports. The members were convicted of “undermining the implementation of laws by making use of cult organizations.” Police found 422 books, 1,047 leaflets, 283 video discs and 12 memory cards with more than 101,000 files in video, photo and text promoting the cult in their possession. Meanwhile, a court in Liaoning sentenced another five members of the group to two or three years in prison for spreading cult propaganda. "Almighty God," which claims that Jesus has been resurrected as Yang Xiangbin, wife of the cult's founder, Zhao Weishan, first appeared in the 1990s in Henan. The couple fled to the United States in September 2000.