BRUSSELS: Pier Antonio Panzeri, Chair of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights, yesterday issued a statement expressing concern over China’s harsh sentencing of Tibetan language rights activist Tashi Wangchuk. He called on China to drop the charges against Tashi Wangchuk and release him as per an official resolution passed by the European Parliament this January.
“I am gravely concerned about the verdict of a court in the Chinese city of Yushu, sentencing Mr Tashi Wangchuk to 5 years imprisonment on charges of inciting separatism. Mr Tashi Wangchuk undertook fully legitimate work advocating for the linguistic and cultural rights of Tibetans, as it became known through a documentary film published by the New York Times,” he said.
“The peaceful activity of promoting the use of the Tibetan language in local schools should never be punished as this is a basic human right guaranteed by the Chinese constitution and legal system. It is highly regrettable and unjust that Mr Tashi Wangchuk already had to spend two years in detention. I call on the Chinese authorities to respect the basic principles of a fair and transparent trial and guarantee meaningful consideration of the facts during the appeal phase. I would like to draw attention to the European Parliament’s resolution of January this year which called for the release of Mr Tashi Wangchuk and for the charges against him to be dropped”.
Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan language rights advocate, was sentenced to five years in prison by a Chinese court yesterday for allegedly “inciting separatism”. He was tried earlier this year on January 4 at Yushu Intermediate People’s Court but the court adjourned without a verdict at that time.
He was first detained on 27 January 2016 for publicly advocating Tibetan language education in schools in Tibetan populated areas. Two months before his detention, Tashi Wangchuk appeared in a New York Times documentary in which he can be seen advocating for the rights of Tibetans to learn and study in their mother tongue.