[huridocs-tech] China: Tibetan Intellectual's Blogs Shuttered

(London, October 9, 2006) -- Chinese authorities’ closure of a
leading Tibetan intellectual’s blogs signals another online
chill, Human Rights Watch said today. Oeser, whose blog at
http://woeser.bokee.com was closed in late September, is the first
Tibetan writer inside the mainland to openly raise in Chinese
critical questions about China’s role in Tibet and to urge
Beijing to negotiate with the Dalai Lama. 

Oeser, born in 1966, graduated with a degree in Chinese from the
Southwestern Institute for National Minorities in Chengdu, and later
attended the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing as a visiting
scholar. From 1990 she worked as an editor of the journal Tibetan
Literature (Xizang Wenxue) in Lhasa. She is the author of 10 volumes,
including one book of collected poems, a prose volume Notes on Tibet
(2003), and two books on the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution which are
not distributed in China. She was removed from her position at the
Tibet Cultural Association in Lhasa in 2004 after China’s
United Front Department and its Publications Bureau determined that
her writings contained “political errors” due to the
positive references in Notes on Tibet to the exiled Tibetan leader.
Oeser has reportedly has been unable to apply 
for a passport since then. 

Because readers in China have no access to her books, Oeser began to
make extensive use of the Internet to disseminate her writings. In
February 2005, Oeser established her first blog through
www.tibetcult.net. 

Although the first Tibet-related websites and blogs were launched
around 2000, Oeser’s blogs set a new standard for frank
discussions on a number of highly sensitive issues, such as HIV/AIDS
in Tibet, the Tibet railway, the 40th anniversary of the Cultural
Revolution, the anniversary of the events in Tibet in March 1959, and
other sensitive matters. Oeser’s blogs prompted an increasing
number of Tibetan and ethnic Chinese intellectuals, and many from
other minority groups, to publicly debate topics relating to Tibet,
including ethnic discrimination, environmental degradation, and
cultural dilution as a result of migration. 

Over the course of 2005 and 2006, some pages of www.tibetcult.net
were temporarily shut down and then reopened. Around May 2006, Oeser
also was invited by a friend to blog on a list hosted by
www.daqi.com. Although the blog hosted by www.daqi.com was not as
popular as the earlier one through www.tibetcult.net, both blogs were
shut down in late July 2006. 

In August 2006, Oeser made a third attempt at electronic discussion
via http://woeser.bokee.com. On September 21, Oeser took part from
Beijing in a live broadcast on the U.S.-based broadcasting service
VOA to discuss rare photographs she had recently published of the
Cultural Revolution in Tibet. Her blog on http://woeser.bokee.com was
removed by authorities in late September. 

In recent years, the Chinese government and Communist party officials
have moved aggressively to shut down websites, blogs, and other
electronic forums that discuss what the government considers
sensitive topics, using a sophisticated network of human and
technological controls. Journalists, bloggers, webmasters, writers,
and editors who sent news out of China or who even debated among
themselves about Tibet, Taiwan, and human rights, among other
subjects, have faced punishments ranging from sudden unemployment to
long prison terms. In an August 2006 report, “Race to the
Bottom,” Human Rights Watch extensively documented Chinese
government censorship of the Internet 
(http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/). 

In January 2005 five Tibetan monks from Drakar Trezong Monastery in
Qinghai received reeducation-through-labor sentences of up to three
years for publishing a journal called “Great Rays of the Sun
and Moon,” which authorities alleged contained
“splittist” views. The monks were on the editorial team
of the journal. And in July 2006, the Chinese Communist Party’s
propaganda department barred domestic media outlets from carrying
stories about Princess Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo, the daughter of
Tibet’s late 10th Panchen Lama. Panchen Lamas are second in
importance only to Dalai Lama, and are seen by Chinese authorities as
a symbol of resistance to their authority. 

China has signed but not ratified the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights, and it allows virtually no freedom of speech,
assembly, association, or religion in Tibet. Those who oppose Chinese
rule are frequently detained and tortured, and even those simply
practicing their religion are often subject to harassment and worse. 

“If China is serious about autonomy with respect to Tibet, it
must permit free, unfettered debate about Tibet and conditions
there,” said Richardson. 

Human Rights Watch Press release 






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