Cultural Genocide

How China Used a Times Documentary as Evidence Against Its Subject
By JONAH M. KESSEL

Last week, Tibetan activist Tashi Wangchuk was tried in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai on charges of “inciting separatism” after he appeared in a New York Times video about his fight to preserve the Tibetan language, which faces extinction due both to government efforts to enforce Mandarin learning and to economic pressures to learn the national tongue. No verdict has yet been announced, but the charges against him could bring a sentence of up to 15 years. CDT cartoonist Badiucao pays tribute to Tashi by depicting a snow lion, the traditional emblem of Tibet, with a muzzle over its mouth

During the eight years I lived in China, people would often say they felt as if they had no voice under Communist Party rule. 

This was especially true for minorities.
So when Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan herder turned shopkeeper, showed up at my apartment in Beijing in the spring of 2015, I of course wanted to listen to his story.
He told me the Chinese authorities on the Tibetan Plateau had been slowly eradicating the Tibetan language from schools and the business world. 

Mr. Tashi believed prohibiting the study of the Tibetan language went against China’s constitution.
The New York Times was not Mr. Tashi’s first stop in his attempt to raise this issue, I learned. 

Chinese state-controlled media had refused to listen to him. 

And years earlier, the Chinese authorities had briefly jailed him for expressing his opinions on social media. 

Foreign media were his last resort to be heard.
Last week, more than two years after our first meeting, Mr. Tashi was tried in court for “inciting separatism,” a criminal charge that largely amounts to seeking independence from the Chinese state. No verdict has come down yet, but the sentence could hold a punishment of 15 years in prison. (For those hoping for an acquittal, it’s important to note that China’s courts have a 99 percent conviction rate.)
But the root of his crime was talking to me.
In 2015, after I met Mr. Tashi, I made a nine-minute film for The Times about his efforts to raise the issue of Tibetan education to the central government and Chinese state media. 

Last week, that documentary was shown in court as the main evidence that Mr. Tashi was inciting separatism.
The use of my film as evidence against Mr. Tashi gets at the heart of one of the thorniest issues that can plague foreign journalists: How do we justify instances when our work — aimed at giving voice to the voiceless and holding the powerful to account — ends up putting its subjects at risk or in danger?

Protesters gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in London on the first anniversary of Mr. Tashi’s detention.

Before I made this documentary, Edward Wong — then The Times’s Beijing bureau chief — and I talked at length with Mr. Tashi about the risks he assumed in speaking with us and appearing on video.
Mr. Tashi thought that people wouldn’t believe his story if they couldn’t see him. 

I agreed that it wouldn’t hold the same power. 

He believed he was acting within the guidelines of the law. 

I believed in giving him the agency the Chinese government and state media had refused him. 

He believed his voice must be heard at all costs.
But for Mr. Tashi, speaking out has come at a price.
In early 2016, Mr. Tashi — who specifically told me that he was not advocating Tibetan independence — was kidnapped and held in secret detention, without contact with lawyers and family members for months on end. 

He was subjected to constant interrogation. 

For two years, he has waited in jail, silenced.
But along with his struggles came renewed hope in a story long plagued by news fatigue: The international community began speaking up for Mr. Tashi and his cause.
United Nations officials, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, PEN America and the United States Embassy in Beijing have all publicly criticized the Chinese government over the case. 

Last March, the European Union and Germany voiced concerns at the United Nations Human Rights Council over Mr. Tashi’s arrest. 

His case has been covered by countless publications around the world, and his arrest has transformed him from an ordinary shopkeeper with a fifth-grade education into a cultural icon of both justice and oppression.

Protesters gathered in support of Mr. Tashi outside the Chinese consulate in New York on Monday.

One of Mr. Tashi’s lawyers told us that community members in Yushu, his hometown, had said that Mr. Tashi had “made a big impact on local Tibetans” and that “people admire him.”
The International Tibet Network awarded him the Tenzin Delek Rinpoche Medal of Courage, recognizing his “courage and dedication to promoting Tibetan human rights and justice for the Tibetan people.”
Meanwhile, some have asked me if I regret making my film. 

I’ve fielded a variety of queries on the topic — from Tibetan advocacy groups, journalists, students, press freedom groups and social media. 

Some have been critical, saying I shouldn’t have made the documentary. 

A former State Department official raised the question of whether I am “complicit in exposing a person vulnerable for his ethnicity.”
I’ve struggled with some of these issues on my own. 

I’ve wondered: Is our discussion of Tibetan rights worth more than a decade of one man’s freedom? Has Mr. Tashi’s arrest ultimately furthered his cause?

Protesters from @SFTHQ demanding the release of #TashiWangchuk are outside of the Chinese consulate in New York City

These are important and difficult questions. 

And while I don’t have definite answers, I do know this: Mr. Tashi and his concerns are now being acknowledged throughout the world. 

On Monday, protesters gathered outside the Chinese consulate in New York City to demand language rights for all Chinese — as well as the release of Mr. Tashi. 

Similar gatherings have happened in London. 

A political cartoonist in Australia has turned his message into pop art. 

His voice, at last, is resonating on an international stage.
I know, too, that Mr. Tashi has asked these kinds of questions himself and that he came to his own conclusions: that language rights are human rights, that they are protected by both China’s constitution and international human rights law, and that it was his duty to help protect his culture, no matter the cost.

Chinese Colonialism

Rights Groups Condemn China for Charging Tibetan Activist with 'Inciting Separatism'
By Yeshi Dorje

A Tibetan exile in Dharmsala, India, walks past a banner demanding the release of Tashi Wangchuk, an outspoken campaigner for the rights of Tibetans to receive instructions in Tibetan language, who was arrested in 2016 in China's Qinghai province for allegedly inciting separatism, Jan. 27, 2017.

A Tibetan language rights advocate and businessman pleaded not guilty Thursday to four charges of "inciting separatism" during a four-hour trial in China that a rights group called a "sham."
The People's Middle Court in Yushu, in Qinghai province, said it would issue a verdict at a later, unspecified date, according to a tweet in Chinese from activist Tashi Wangchuk's lawyer.
Tashi Wangchuk, 32, has been in detention since his arrest in January 2016, two months after he spoke to New York Times reporters about how China's policy was eroding the Tibetan language.
The primary evidence in the trial was a short video documentary by the Times titled A Tibetan's Journey for Justice, according to Liang Xiaojun, the defendant's attorney. 

The Times is blocked in China, and the case underscores the danger people place themselves in when speaking with foreign news outlets.
Human Rights Watch said the delay in the verdict was an indication that a severe sentence, which could be up to 15 years in prison, would be an embarrassment for Chinese government authorities.
"The fact that he hasn't been given a sentence at all may mean that the authorities essentially going to keep him in detention but spare themselves the embarrassment of giving him a harsh sentence," said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. 

"That he has not been given a verdict doesn't mean that he is going to go free."
Amnesty International called the trial a "sham" that presented "absurd" charges against the activist.

Misuse of charge alleged
The group's statement said, "Exposing and criticizing the way Tibetan language and culture are being suppressed by government policies is a legitimate exercise of free speech. Labeling it as a form of 'inciting separatism' demonstrates how the Chinese authorities blatantly misuse this criminal charge to silence dissent."
A Tibetan exile in Dharmsala, India, stands near a poster demanding that China release Tibetan activist Tashi Wangchuk, who was charged with inciting separatism, Jan. 27, 2017.

Beijing considers Tibet "part" of China and often equates Tibetans' advocacy for greater autonomy or rights of a cultural or religious nature as "separatism." 

VOA Tibetan sought a comment on the case from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, but was told, "You cannot leave a message because message box is full."
In the documentary, Tashi Wangchuk speaks extensively in Mandarin about the "pressure and fear" felt by Tibetans and his worry that their culture is being wiped out through the steady erosion of their language, according to The Associated Press.
Minority rights are protected under China's constitution, as is the right to sue government officials, he says in the video.
Tashi Wangchuk notes that 140 Tibetans have died from self-immolation since 2009 and says he believes they were also protesting the disappearance of their culture under Beijing's rule.
The documentary shows him seeking redress through official channels as he travels to Beijing, where he tries, unsuccessfully, to sue local officials and persuade journalists at China's powerful state broadcaster, CCTV, to cover his case.
Tashi Wangchuk said that if the courts refused to hear his case, it would prove that the Chinese legal system would not solve issues surrounding Tibetan rights. 

"If this comes to an end and I'm locked up and cannot proceed with what I'm doing and they force me to say or do things I don't want to say, I will choose suicide," he added.
Liang said in his tweet that although most people in the courtroom were Tibetans, the court conducted the trial in Chinese.
"I said that I am an outsider from the point of view of the Tibetans, but that I and many others who love Tibetan culture wish that it will be protected just as the Chinese traditional culture will be protected," Liang said. 

"I said, 'I wish you can understand the altruistic motivation of this young, admirable Tibetan.'"

Reflection of commitment to rights
How the Chinese court handles this case will define China's commitment to upholding the constitutional rights of its citizens, said Lobsang Sangay, head of Tibet's government in exile.

Two Tibetan nuns in Dharmsala, India, hold placards demanding that China release Tashi Wangchuk, an outspoken campaigner for the rights of Tibetans, Jan. 27, 2017.

"Tashi Wangchuk has on his own volition advocated for a constitutionally guaranteed right, that of bilingual education for Tibetans and ethnic minorities. His trial and sentencing will determine largely whether the Chinese government is committed to upholding the internationally recognized laws and domestically accepted rule of law in China," Sangay said in a statement released by the exiled Tibetan government.
The South China Morning Post quoted Liang as saying that Tashi Wangchuk was treated well by other inmates in the detention.
"He is innocent because he was only exercising his right to criticize the marginalization of Tibetan language and culture," Liang said. 

"He is well-treated [in Tibetans' detention facilities] because what he does is well-respected among Tibetans."
"This case has been farce from the beginning," said Richardson, speaking to the VOA's Tibetan service. 

"The only way for China to redeem itself from embarrassing itself is to let him go immediately, drop the charges and let the man go back to living his life, and, frankly, fulfilling precisely the requests he made to them to allow that kind of education. That's what the Chinese law allows for."