11 Feb 2011 | Asia and Pacific, China
Tibetan singer Tashi Dhondup, who was sentenced to 15 months hard labour in January 2010 for recording political songs, has been released a few months early, according to Radio Free Asia.
RFA’s source, who was not named but who is cited as a close relative, added that locals and friends came out to welcome him home. There was no police interference. In other parts of China, police often prevent any kind of public welcome for newly-released dissidents, often keeping them under house arrest or in further secret detention for a time. (See the curious case of Hada).
The radio station said a document smuggled out of China last year claimed the 30-year-old had “violated laws” by singing songs about Tibetan independence and their exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Two of his songs were singled out, Torture without Trace and 58. The latter referenced a failed 1958-59 uprising against Chinese rule which sparked the Tibetan exodus to India.
Thousands of C’s of his controversial songs spread through markets in the Tibetan areas of Qinghai province which may have prompted Dhondup’s arrest, media said at the time.
Index on Censorship magazine recently published an article by Beijing-based Tibetan dissident writer Woeser headlined Tradition in Protest. She quotes from 58:
The year of 1958
Is when the black enemy entered Tibet
Is when the lamas were put in prison
That time was terrifying …
The year of 2008
Is when innocent Tibetans were beaten
Is when people of the world were massacred
That time was terrifying.
Woeser describes the young singer. “Someone sent me a photo of Dhondup. Round-faced, with long narrow eyes, he appeared fashionable, dressed in black hunting gear with lightened hair.” A poet friend of hers later revealed he was a relative of Dhondup’s. “The Dhondup he spoke of was a wayward youth who liked to get drunk, sing, and chase grassland girls”, but “He’s a hero now. When I ask at roadside stalls in Xining [capital of Qinghai province] if they’ve got his songs they make sure I’m not police or undercover, then pull out a big bag full of his recordings. They’re all copies of course.”
Dechen Pemba, a London-based Tibetan activist blogger said she welcomed the news of his release. “People all over the world have come to know of his thoughts, feelings, musical talent and great courage,” she told Uncut. “We hope he will be able to recover from his experiences in prison and return to making music.”
High Peaks Pure Earth has posted some of his English-subtitled music videos here.
30 Jan 2011 | Asia and Pacific, China
Terms like Falun Gong, the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the names of high profile Chinese dissidents have long been censored in China, but now it’s the turn of country names.
A search on Weibo — a twitter-like service owned by Sina — for the words “Egypt” or “Tunisia” in Chinese returns the message: “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results cannot be shown.” The names of the countries in English are not blocked.
News wires are reporting that Sohu’s microblog has also blocked searches for Egypt.
The state news services, though, are covering the protests in both countries and regular searches on online Chinese search engines are not blocking the words.
This new and curious development follows recent anti-government protests in both countries. Riots in major Egyptian cities including Cairo and Alexandria have left more than 100 people dead. The unrest in Tunisia toppled the president. Protests are continuing over the choice of ministers for the interim government.
Global Voices Online is reporting that some Chinese bloggers have set up regular updates of Egyptian news on Weibo which comes up in searches for “Egypt” in English.
The censorship all seems a bit over the top. As one China-based western blogger observed: “Anything is possible, I suppose, but the very idea of Chinese activists being so inspired by the riots in Egypt that they’d try to implement the same tactics in China is so absurd it’s laughable.”
13 Jan 2011 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
The studio of acclaimed artist Ai Weiwei has been demolished, a move the artist believes is due to his political activism. Ai Weiwei was one of the artists who helped in the construction of the “bird’s nest” in Beijing Olympics and has been a vocal critic of the Chinese government’s human rights record.
13 Jan 2011 | Asia and Pacific, China
The sad death of jailed writer Zhang Jianhong went by with hardly a blip from the foreign media.
Zhang, 52, died 31 December in hospital while on medical parole from a rare neurological disease. He leaves behind a wife and daughter.
A few months into his prison term in Zhejiang province, Zhang, whose pen name was Li Hong, was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, a disorder in which the muscles irreversibly waste away. The prison repeatedly denied him medical parole until June last year, by which time he was completely paralysed and was kept alive by a respirator.
Zhang had been sentenced to six years for “inciting subversion of state power” in March 2007 for his work as a contributor to anti-Chinese government, pro-human rights media overseas including the Epoch Times and Boxun.
Radio Free Asia also reported that Chinese police warned his dissident friends not to publicly mourn Zhang.
Zhang had a long history of angering the authorities. In December 1989 he was sentenced to three years of Re-education Through Labour for publicly criticizing the Tiananmen Square Massacre. He briefly took part in the protests but left the Square on 2 June.
His contacts with the China Democracy Party also got him periodically in trouble.
In 2005, he founded Aegean Sea, a literary website which was closed down by the police the following year for its anti-government content.
Zhang was also a commercially successful freelance writer and poet, penning several novels and a popular TV show The Firm of Red Clothes.
He was a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) which released a statement mourning his death.
“ICPC considers Mr Zhang Jianhong as the most recent victim of contemporary literary inquisition in China and one of its worst cases in over 30 years,” the centre said.
“May his spirit live on,” said US-based Human Rights in China.
