RIC Query - Nepal (2 May 2001)

According to TIN, the Tibetans were jailed because they were unable to pay steep fines, which included visa fees, late visa fees, and further penalties. The two monks were fined $2,733 each, while the eight Tibetans arrested at the checkpoint were fined $1,624 each (TIN 15 Feb 2002). It is not clear how much the monk arrested in Solukhumbu was fined.

The president of ICT noted that the Tibetan community could afford to pay the fines. The community fears, however, that doing so will encourage Nepalese officials to jail more Tibetans or to raise the fines in order to extract more money (ICT 21 Mar 2002).

According to TIN's director, most of the relatively few Tibetans who have been handed over to Chinese border officials by Nepalese police were trying to enter Nepal and appeared not to have made it much further than the border before being caught. Some Tibetans, however, have been returned to China even after they reached Kathmandu. Others, meanwhile, have bribed police to get as far as India (TIN 21 Mar 2002).

In what appeared to be a surge in the number of repatriations, Nepalese police handed over to Chinese border guards at least 15 Tibetans between November 25 and December 24, 2001, according to TIN. The group said that it learned of the deportations only because there were witnesses and that the actual number of deportations is likely to be higher. Sources told TIN that Chinese authorities in some cases paid Nepalese officials to hand over detainees (TIN 24 Dec 2001). The U.S. State Department reported a lower number of cases, saying that it knew of seven Tibetan asylum seekers forcibly repatriated by Nepalese officials in 2001 (U.S. DOS Mar 2002).

Tibetans in Nepal face considerable risks in part because the Government of Nepal has long stopped granting them refugee status, apparently in an effort to foster good relations with China. The kingdom also prevents the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has an office in Kathmandu, from classifying Tibetans as refugees. Instead, the UNHCR may only classify Tibetans in Nepal as "People of Concern" (ICT 21 Mar 2002).

The Government of Nepal stopped granting refugee status to Tibetans in December 1989. It agreed to a UNHCR request that Tibetans be allowed to transit Nepal to a third country, namely India. As a result, Nepal's official policy is for police to bring asylum seekers to immigration authorities in Kathmandu. The Tibetans may stay at a UNHCR reception center in the capital before going on to India (TIN 24 Dec 2001). According to U.S. Committee for Refugees, in 2000, the UNHCR facilitated travel to India for 2,319 of 2,637 Tibetan refugees who entered Nepal from China (USCR 2001). At the time of this report, figures for 2001 were unavailable.

Although the government of Nepal and the UNHCR have agreed on procedures for handling Tibetans who are transiting Nepal on their way to India from China, there are no agreed-upon procedures for dealing with Tibetans returning to China from India (TIN 15 Feb 2002). In any case, TIN reports that Nepalese police often are unaware of or simply ignore procedures for dealing with Tibetans (TIN 24 Dec 2001).

Nepal's immigration law, meanwhile, does not make provisions for refugees. Foreigners entering the kingdom are considered illegal immigrants if they do not have valid visas (TIN 15 Feb 2002). This makes Tibetans who lack papers and who are not under UNHCR auspices relatively easy targets for police (ICT 21 Mar 2002).

In practice, most Tibetans in Nepal lack valid Nepalese documents, Indian refugee passports, or Chinese passports, which often are difficult for Tibetans to obtain. Tibetans born in Nepal, however, can get certain Nepalese documents even if they choose not to become Nepalese citizens, according to the ICT president (ICT 21 Mar 2002). For example, some Tibetans have Nepalese residence permits (Office of Tibet 21 Mar 2002).

The residence permits, however, are for identification purposes only and confer few real privileges, according to a representative of the Office of Tibet in New York, a de facto diplomatic office of the Dalai Lama. "It is just a piece of paper," the representative said in a telephone interview. The representative stated that some Tibetans who have Nepalese documents got them illegally by bribing officials. Tibetans who illegally obtain Nepalese citizenship often use Sherpa names on their papers, the representative added (Office of Tibet 21 Mar 2002). The Sherpas are a people of Tibetan origin who live mainly in the Everest region of northeastern Nepal (FAO 1967).

Tibetans in Nepal recently have faced threats from another quarter¿ the Maoist guerrillas whose insurgency since 1996 has killed some 2,000 rebels, soldiers, police, and civilians. Maoists have threatened and extorted money from some Tibetan shop owners in Kathmandu and bombed at least one Tibetan shop in the capital (Office of Tibet 21 Mar 2002).

Tibetans in Nepal have also been unable recently to publicly observe major political and religious holidays. Tibetans were not allowed to publicly commemorate Tibetan National Day in March 2002 and have been barred from publicly displaying photographs of the Dalai Lama for the past two or three years, according to TIN's director. In the past, police "would have closed their eyes" to such public displays, the director said, adding that Nepalese officials have also forbidden Tibetans from publicly celebrating some religious festivals (TIN 21 Mar 2002). In 2001, however, Nepalese authorities allowed the Tibetan community in Kathmandu to celebrate publicly the Dalai Lama's birthday, according to the U.S. State Department (U.S. DOS Mar 2002).

This response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RIC within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

References:

Office of Tibet, New York. Representative. Telephone interview (New York: 21 Mar 2002).

President, International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). Telephone interview (Washington, DC: 21 Mar 2002).

Tibet Information Network (TIN). Director. Telephone interview (London: 21 Mar 2002).

Tibet Information Network (TIN). "Tibetan Prisoners in Nepal Seek Royal Pardon" (15 Feb 2002), http://www.tibetinfo.net/news-updates/2002/1502.htm [Accessed 20 Mar 2002]

Tibet Information Network (TIN). "Decline in Refugee Numbers as China and Nepal Tighten Security on Tibetan Border" (2 Jan 2002), http://www.tibetinfo.net/news-updates/2002/0201.htm [Accessed 20 Mar 2002]

Tibet Information Network (TIN). "New Increase in Deportations of Tibetans from Nepal" (24 Dec 2001), http://www.tibetinfo.net/news-updates/nu241201.htm) [Accessed 20 Mar 2002]

UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). UNASYLVA: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF FORESTRY AND FOREST PRODUCTS, "Khumbu - Country of the Sherpas" (Vol. 21, No. 84, 1967), http://www.fao.org/docrep/55408e/55408e02.htm [Accessed 20 Mar 2002]

US Committee for Refugees (USCR). WORLD REFUGEE SURVEY 2001, "China (Including Tibet)" (Washington, DC: 2001), p. 130-131.

U.S. Department of State. COUNTRY REPORTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES FOR 2001, "Nepal" (Washington, DC: 4 Mar 2002), http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/sa/8234.htm [Accessed 20 Mar 2002]