Tibetans Rounded Up

Scores of Tibetans protesting a Chinese company are gathered up and taken away by police.

2009.11.06
Sit-In-305.jpg A group of Tibetans take part in a sit-in protest in front of TIENS corporate headquarters in Tianjin, Oct. 21, 2009.
RFA

HONG KONG—Police in China have rounded up and bundled onto buses nearly 100 Tibetans protesting outside a company in the northeastern municipality of Tianjin that they say cheated them through a pyramid scheme, a spokesman for the group said.

“We are in Tianjin right now. I was placed in a bus, and we are about to leave for Chengdu,” in the southwestern province of Sichuan, Tsephel, a spokesman for the protesters, said.

“All the Tibetan protesters were dumped into different vehicles. Around 5 a.m., when we were sleeping, more than 3,000 armed police attacked us. They beat us, handcuffed us, and forced us to board different vehicles. There were more than 100 vehicles in the parking lot,” he said in a telephone interview.

Tsephel estimated the number of protesters at 98 people.

Police beat some of the protesters and dragged them into waiting vehicles, he said, adding, “Many of us were hurt, and one person was so severely beaten that he fainted and fell to the ground.”

No comment was available from the local police, who hung up when contacted by telephone.

No power to intervene

Government officials who had been sent to Tianjin to urge the group to stop protesting were unable to intervene.

“They [the officials] came from the TAR [the Tibetan Autonomous Region], Qinghai, and Sichuan,” he said. “They couldn’t do anything. They were assigned to convince us to stop protesting. When we talked to them, they expressed their helplessness.”

“I think we will be transported to Chengdu by bus and train. From Chengdu we would be transported by bus again and handed over to our respective local authorities,” Tsephel said.

“We are going to press the local government to compensate our losses. We cannot remain quiet and silent. Each of us should be compensated with 100,000 yuan,” he said.

The Tibetans, who claim they were cheated in a pyramid scheme run by a purported health-products company, had staged protests in several Chinese cities.

They have been seeking restitution from TIENS at its company headquarters in Tianjin municipality. Tibetan investors said they were promised large returns on initial investments but have received nothing.

Those who brought in additional investors as instructed by the company also saw their friends and family cheated out of funds, they said.

Authorities in Tianjin and TIENS company officials have refused to comment.

Tsering Dhargyal, 54, from the Chamdo district of Kham in China’s western Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), said the group planned to sue.

Tsering Dhargyal said members of the group first reported being contacted by company officials on July 2, 2007, and said they had been “pushed” to accept an offer to invest.

He said the members who became investors in the company come from all over Tibet, including Lhasa, Kham, and Amdo.

“For an initial investment of 2,800 yuan (U.S. $410) from each individual, we were promised great prosperity in return. They called it a big family business, which is not only good for Tibetan people, but for the nation as a whole. In that way we collected money and joined the business,” Dhargyal said.

Recruiting people

Tsering Dhargyal said TIENS explained to investors that it had no products to sell and instead generated business “through people.”

“For example, I went alone, and they said that my responsibility was to bring two people. The next two people must bring two more, and this would continue until it reached the thousands,” he said.

Tsering Dhargyal said that investors were paid according to the number of people the recruited, but they soon learned that it was impossible to reach the quotas TIENS had set for them.

He said he had sold all of his possessions to invest in the company and attend the training sessions.

“We sold our land and animals to cover the expense to come [to mainland China] in the hope of becoming rich, but only now realize it was a scam.”

Original reporting by Lobsang Choephel for RFA’s Tibetan service. Tibetan service director: Jigme Ngapo. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written for the Web in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.

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COMMENTS

Anonymous
Nov 09, 2009 04:30 PM

NEVER TRUST IN YOUR ENEMY! especially when your enemy is CHINA!

Anonymous
Nov 06, 2009 07:25 AM

I feel sorry for these people, but it really is about 'greed' as much as anything else, thinking you will get something for nothing, I warned some people that it sounded like a 'pyramid' scheme, that would not be allowed in the west and they should discourage their friends from going from a small town in sichuan, I know alot of people went from that area, some people closing their shops and going, crazy stuff really, the hope of something for nothing ( albeit their intial investment)

Anonymous
Nov 07, 2009 02:39 PM

Unfortunately, for the poor, the victim of Chinese tyranny. Hopefully, the justice will be with Tibitan people.

Anonymous
Nov 07, 2009 02:38 PM

Chinese Communists are the world wost cheaters. Down with the Communism !

Anonymous
Nov 09, 2009 01:15 PM

This is the great inhumane action in the history from the Chinese dictators. You plundered Tibetan Land also imposed cruel yoke on them. Generally, Chinese people are sincere but the communist regime very furious. Leaders of communist China never learnt their ancestors' instructions, Laozu or Confucian taught that Bad will bring suffering, Good will bring happiness. Whatever the handful of unsour communists sow, they will reap severely.