Tibet’s raging storm

20 May 2010 | News and features

A new report highlights the way China targeted Tibetan intellectuals and artists in response to Tibet’s spring 2008 protests writes Kate Saunders

There has been a vibrant literary and cultural resurgence in Tibet since spring 2008, when protests against Chinese government policy and in support of the Dalai Lama swept across the plateau.

A new generation of Tibetan intellectuals, often fluent in Chinese and familiar with digital technology, are daring to refute China’s official narrative. Their critiques are among the most wide-ranging indictments of Chinese policy in Tibet for 50 years.

In response, there is a deepening crackdown by the Chinese government against Tibetan writers, bloggers, artists, and other intellectuals in the public sphere. For the first time since the Cultural Revolution, writers, intellectuals, singers and artists in Tibet are being systematically targeted for their work, and almost every expression of Tibetan identity can be accused of being “reactionary” or “splittist”. Tashi Dhondup, a popular singer from Amdo (now Qinghai), , is in a labour camp as a result of singing songs referring to Tibetans’ grief at the killings of March 2008. Kunchok Tsephel, the founder of a website promoting Tibetan culture, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November. Bloggers, artists and other intellectuals, including an artist who taught the Tibetan language to nomad children, have ‘disappeared’.

Although less well-known outside China than high-profile Chinese dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo and Hu Jia, many of the intellectuals named are famous among Tibetans, and are also enduring long prison terms for peaceful expression. Their concerns about restrictions and repression mirror those of their Chinese counterparts.

A new list is now available at www.savetibet.org detailing the cases of more than 50 Tibetans, including 13 writers, involved in the arts and public sphere who are either in prison, have been ‘disappeared’ or have faced torture or harassment due to expressing their views.

Since March 2008, the Chinese government has blocked news of the arrests, torture, disappearances and killings that have taken place across Tibet. The dangers faced by Tibetans who seek to describe the situation on the ground or simply express their views to the outside world have dramatically increased.

Among those named in the International Campaign for Tibet’s report are Tibetans sentenced to long prison terms for simply speaking about the crackdown via email or on the telephone. The penalties attached to these cases indicate a zero tolerance policy that is counter to China’s obligations to free speech under its own law and international human rights law.

Kate Saunders works for the International Campaign for Tibet