Authorities in March announced the establishment of 697 committees staffed by 1,960 inspectors, state media sources said, adding that the groups have tightened surveillance especially in and near villages on the border, demanding that travel documents be shown by Tibetans traveling in those areas. Large numbers of blue-uniformed security troops have now been deployed in Tibet’s Lhodrag (Chinese, Luozha) and Nyalam (Nielamu) counties, a Tibetan resident of the regional capital Lhasa told RFA’s Tibetan Service this week.
“And any Tibetans traveling there from outside these regions have to show a document stamped with a travel permit,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There has been a surge in crackdowns by Chinese authorities on villages in Tibet in recent years, though this used to happen more in the cities and towns before,” he said. “Following [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s declaration that in administering the border regions, “'We must first of all stabilize Tibet,'” we have seen an intensified crackdown on Tibetans living inside Tibet,” a second source said, also declining to be named for reasons of security.
