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Police in China’s southwestern Sichuan province on 17 August responded with lethal force to a group of Tibetans protesting the expansion of a gold mining operation they say is harming the environment, according to Tibetan sources. At least four Tibetans may have been killed in a standoff with police.

Junta-ruled Burma has suspended visas on arrival for tourists from September ahead of its first elections in two decades, officials said on 23 August 2010, potentially restricting access to the country for foreign observers. Meanwhile Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy announced on 20 August an official boycott of the election.

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) is deeply concerned with continued reports of violence and ill-treatment during government operations in southern Kyrgyz Republic. According to NHC, some government structures are still mistreating local inhabitants under the guise of weapons searches and ongoing operations following the deeply tragic June events.

As the Burmese authorities have announced the date of the national election for 7 November, the opposition has started its activity. The main aim of one of the opposition groups, young activists called Generation Wave (GW), is to urge the people of Burma to boycott the elections, given the undemocratic nature of the 2008 Constitution. They spread posters with a text “You have the right to not vote” and with a picture of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the background.

European Union member states should publicly support the establishment of an international Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in September, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to EU foreign ministers on 11 August 2010.

Footage of Runggye Adak, a Tibetan nomad now serving an eight-year prison sentence for peacefully denouncing Chinese policies in Tibet and calling for the return of the Dalai Lama, was released on 1 August 2010 as Tibetans and their supporters intensify the global campaign for his release. Four Tibetan activists were imprisoned on 30 July for pasting leaflets containing demands for Tibetan freedom and return of the Dalai Lama.

The chairman of the Union Democratic Party (UDP) in Burma has quit his post in protest at lack of reform of pre-election conditions. Despite that the party is not going to withdraw from the upcoming elections. Experts criticize the election process very much and say it is clearly designed to guarantee a pre-determined outcome.

Timur Tskhovrebov, a civil rights activist in South Ossetia was attacked on July 24, 2010, allegedly by supporters of the de facto president of the breakaway region of Georgia, after he signed a joint appeal to negotiators in Geneva to prioritise the needs of the local population. Tskhovrebov was hospitalized with multiple injuries.

A court in northwest the People´s Republic of China has rejected an appeal from a Tibetan environmentalist Karma Samdrup who was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of grave robbing and dealing in looted antiquities, his lawyer said on 2 August 2010.