https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy#Slavery
Prior to 1950
Judicial mutilation – principally the gouging out of eyes, and the cutting off of hands or feet – was formalized under the Sakya school as part of the 13th century Tibetan legal code, and was used as a legal punishment until being declared illegal in 1913 by a proclamation of the 13th Dalai Lama.[58] In this same reform, the Dalai Lama banned capital punishment, making Tibet one of the first countries to do so (preceding, for instance, Switzerland, Britain, and France).[59] The 14th Dalai Lama's brother Jigme Norbu reports that, along with these reforms, living conditions in jails were improved, with officials being designated to see that these conditions and rules were maintained."[60][61]
Incidents of mutilation have been recorded in Tibet in the period between the start of the 20th century and the Chinese occupation. Tibetan communist Phuntso Wangye recalled his anger at seeing freshly severed human ears hanging from the gate of the county headquarters in Damshung north of Lhasa in 1945.[62]
Robert W. Ford, one of the few Westerners to have been appointed by the Government of Tibet at the time of de facto independent Tibet, spent five years in Tibet, from 1945 to 1950, before his arrest by the invading Chinese army. In his book Wind Between the Worlds: Captured in Tibet, he writes
Heinrich Harrer who lived in Tibet at the same time (1944 to 1951) wrote in his book "Return to Tibet" that these treatments had already ceased at that time:
Because Tibetan Buddhism prohibits killing, mutilation and other extremely cruel punishments were widely used instead in old Tibet. The mutilation of top level Tibetan official Lungshar in 1934 gave an example. Tsepon Lungshar, an official educated in England, introduced reform in the 1920s; after losing a political struggle the reformist was sentenced to be blinded by having his eyeballs pulled out. "The method involved the placement of a smooth, round yak's knucklebone on each of the temples of the prisoner. These were then tied by leather thongs around the head and tightened by turning the thongs with a stick on top of the head until the eyeballs popped out. The mutilation was terribly bungled. Only one eyeball popped out, and eventually the ragyaba had to cut out the other eyeball with a knife. Boiling oil was then poured into the sockets to cauterize the wound."[65][66] This was sufficiently unusual that the untouchables (ragyaba) carrying it out had no previous experience of the correct technique and had to rely on instructions heard from their parents. An attempt was made at anesthetizing the alleged criminal with intoxicants before performing the punishment, which unfortunately did not work well.[66]
As late as 1949 the Tibetan government still sentenced people to mutilation. When a CIA officer Douglas Mackiernan was killed against official entry permit, six Tibetan border guards were tried and sentenced in Lhasa. "The leader was to have his nose and both ears cut off. The man who fired the first shot was to lose both ears. A third man was to lose one ear, and the others were to get 50 lashes each." The sentence was reduced to 200, 50 and 25 lashes, respectively, after another CIA agent Frank Bessac requested leniency.[67]
Whipping was legal and common as punishment[68] in Tibet including in the 20th century, also for minor infractions and outside judicial processes. Whipping could also have fatal consequences, as in the case of the trader Gyebo Sherpa subjected to the severe corca whipping for selling cigarettes. He died from his wounds 2 days later in the Potala prison.[69] The Tibetan tibetologist Tashi Tsering records being whipped as a 13-year-old for missing a performance as a dancer in the Dalai Lama's dance troop in 1942, until the skin split and the pain became excruciating.[70]
In its 100 Questions and Answers About Tibet[71] the People's Republic of China states that human rights were 'severely infringed upon' by the Dalai Lama's administration. The evidence for these accusations is disputed.[72]
According to writer Rebecca French, Tibetans viewed criminal offenses as uncommon, but there are few records to establish frequency. However, Tibetans also believe that theft and banditry were common especially along trade routes.[73] Because it was considered harsh by most Tibetans, they tended to seek alternative settlements and leniency from local courts instead of pursuing government action in disputes. Local officials were also more likely to find peaceful outcomes in a community setting than to resort to harsher government resolution.[73]
Political power could play a role in a judicial process in Tibet. In the eye gouging case above the alleged criminal was a deposed member of the Kashag called Lungshar who had proposed democratic reform. The charge was planning a coup and the attempted murder of another Kashag member who opposed reform. It was strenuously denied by the accused. Conviction was based on the evidence of one informer who claimed to have seen a document which was never produced. He was richly rewarded, and the trial seems to have been a show trial by traditionalists seeking to prevent reform. From arrest to execution of the sentence was only ten days, limiting the possibilities of appeal.[74]
One evidence of Chinese brutality in Eastern Tibet was reported by an American missionary in the following terms:
Believing that the American missionary's account might be a mistake, Sir Eric Teichman, a British diplomat, noted that whatever brutality existed, it was "in no way due to any action of the Chinese government in Peking or the provincial authorities in Szechuana."[75]
Slavery
Israel Epstein wrote that prior to the Communist takeover, poverty in Tibet was so severe that in some of the worst cases peasants had to hand over children to the manor as household slaves or nangzan, because they were too poor to raise them.[76] On the other hand, Laird asserted that in the 1940s Tibetan peasants were well off and immune to famine, whereas starvation was common in China.[77] According to other sources, the so-called "slaves" were domestic servants (nangtsen) and managers of estates in reality.[78]
In 1904 a British expeditionary force occupied the Chumbi Valley for four years, in the border region adjacent to Bhutan and India. Sir Charles Bell was put in charge of the district from September 1904 to November 1905[79] and wrote that slavery was still practiced in Chumbi but had declined greatly over the previous thirty years. He noted that only a dozen or two dozen slaves remained, unlike nearby Bhutan where slavery was more widespread. Bell further remarked, "The slavery in the Chumpi valley was of a very mild type. If a slave was not well treated, it was easy for him to escape into Sikkim and British India.
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