Tybetańczycy - Redux

Chinese paramilitary police, guarding Tianfu Square in Chengdu, have a smoke. There is a heavy police presences in Tianfu Square, with an armored vehicle, dozens of police, some with automatic weapons, patrol cars, segway-type vehicles and x-ray machines downstairs at the subway entrance - all to guard a stature of Mao in the major city closest to the Tibetan-majority regions, hence the security and the concern about potential Tibetan protest, terrorism or monk self-immolation. Sichuan, China. According to the Dharamsala, India-based NGO, Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, security has been beefed up since 2002 when the popular Tibetan lama Trulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche and his nephew, Lobsang Dhondup were convicted, on what have been described as baseless charges for allegedly masterminding a series of bombings in the square. After the 2008 uprising in Tibet, China increased its domestic security budget on public security, which covers the civilian police force, the People's Armed Police and prisons to five times the average spent per person on public security in non-Tibetan prefectures in Sichuan and over twice the amount spent for security in the provincial capital, Chengdu. Lobsang was executed hours after his trial and Trulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was given a suspended death sentence and would remain in prison until he died in 2015.