By Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, Feb. 2: International rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for the immediate release of many youths known popularly as the white paper protestors who are forcibly detained by the Chinese government. It is reported that only a “few” protestors were released on bail until now.
In late November, thousands of demonstrators across China called for an immediate end to the Chinese Communist Party’s draconian Zero-COVID policy and to be accountable for the innocent victims of the building fire in East Turkestan’s (Xinjiang) Urumqi city that killed many civilians. Protestors came onto the streets of Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Chengdu among other cities chanting slogans like, “End zero-Covid,” “We want human rights,” and “Down with the Communist Party!”
Chinese authorities have reportedly detained protestors Li Yi and Chen Jialin, who inspired the protest across cities. Since then, their whereabouts and legal status have remained unclear. Many journalists, filmmakers and activists have been charged with an offence of calling them “pocket crime”- frequently used by Chinese officials to criminalise any participants in a peaceful protest in China. Under China’s Criminal Law, the crime carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. It is also believed that more protestors have been detained or, possibly, forced to disappear while their families are threatened to keep silent, they said.
Meanwhile a 26-year old editor of a publishing house in Beijing, Cao Zhixin following her release from the detention is seen in a video where she recounted how the Chinese police had forcibly detained several of her friends. In the video, she can be seen demanding justice for her friends and how the Chinese police detained her after she participation in the commemoration event for the victims of the Urumqi fire.
Yaqui Wang, a senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said, “Young people in China are paying a heavy price for daring to speak out for freedom and human rights.” “Government and international institutions around the world should show support and call on the Chinese authorities to release them immediately. Attending a vigil and calling door authorities to respect human rights are not crimes. The crackdown on protesters only revealed Beijing’s deep fear of the power of the country’s young people.” he added.
Few days after the protests, all information related to the “white paper” protest were censored on the Chinese internet. At the same time, many accounts of WeChat and Weibo that showed solidarity or merely posted a picture of the blank sheet were permanently removed.
2 Responses
I wanted to say the communist Chinese and their henchmen are building lots of dams along the Tibetan rivers and they are trying divert certain rivers to China and else where. I used the word revered instead of divert. I am sorry for that.
It is very encouraging and laudable that so much attention and solidarity with Chinese White Paper Demonstration to see and read. I am pleased for the general Chinese people that they get so many attention.
I wish the same attention and solidarity with the Tibetan people in Tibet. Tibetans are suffering since 70 years under the brutaality from the communist Chinese. The communist Chinese treat the Tibetan as they think without any thought of the humanity. The Tibetans have no right to their culture, no right to use and maintain their language, no right to maintain their religion, no to right to protect their environment. They have no right to speech and freedom of thought. 1,2 million Tibetans died since 1950 to 1972. Lots of people are still being arrested and put in the jails, only because they try to care for the social welfare, their culture, religion or the environment. They go through brutal torture and so called reeducation measures with extreme pressure. Many are being killed and many die in prison or after their release from the injuries they suffer from the torture in the prison.
They destroyed many or almost all cultural states in the beginning and are now again they are destroying the religious states which Tibetans have rebuilt in the last eighties und nineties and many nuns and monks are forced to leave their institutions with the thread to punish them when they try to return to their institutions. The communist Chinese are assimilating the Tibetans with force. They forbid the Tibetan language in the schools, children are being put in boarding schools where are not allowed to speak Tibetan so that they cannot come into contact with the Tibetan culture at all. The Chines communists want that the Tibetan monasteries also learn Buddhism when then only in Chinese language.
The Chinese communists have looted Tibetan cultural objects and goods from the private house holds as well as from the monasteries and later deforested lots of forests to satisfy the wood hunger in China. Now the communist Chinese and their henchmen are uprooting our country in search of precious metals and minerals and for this the Tibetan nomads are being forcibly resettled without any thought of how they can earn their live in the future. Some times they are forced to leave the new settlements, because the communist Chinese and their henchmen expected certain precious metals or minerals or they wanted to build a new factory there.
The Chinese communists and their henchmen are building lots of dams along the Tibetan rivers and trying revered certain rivers to China and else where. These measures lead to water shortage to many Asian countries like India, Pakistan, Burma, Thailand and many other countries.
All in all the communist Chinese and their henchmen are destroying the environment in Tibet, which is a catastrophe for many Asian countries and the catastrophic effects of environmental destruction for the whole world.
I know many news or intelligence services are being silenced by many industrials, who are making their businesses with and in China. But what about the Tibetans, their culture, their religion and their language and the environment.