A prominent Tibetan female writer in Tibet recently took to social media to express her frustration at the forcible confiscation of her books and her husband’s book from bookstores in Lhasa and Siling (Ch: Xining) cities.
Jamyang Kyi, a feminist writer in Tibet known for her writings on women and social issues, a popular singer as well as a former journalist, wrote in her post last Friday that a group of officials confiscated 1,040 copies of her book “Rights and Wellbeing“, and her husband Lhamo Kyab’s translation of a Chinese book “Separation of Powers and Protection of Rights” from a bookstore in Siling earlier in September.
According to a news report released by the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) on their website, Jamyang Kyi wrote, “Months and years have gone by and it’s now been almost 10 years but there is no respite and no end to this [harassment]: disrupting my mental peace, disturbing my livelihood, and harassing my family and children. What is the aim behind this constant attempt to destroy our livelihood? Why? Why? This land is my fatherland and motherland, and yet I live here like a prisoner on the run.”
Jamyang Kyi was detained in April 2008, accused of sending text messages to her friends about the unrest in Tibet that year. She detailed her experiences and the torture she underwent while in arbitrarily detention in “A Sequence of Tortures; A Diary of Interrogations“. Kyi was released on 21 April after paying a huge fine. However, she was “placed under government surveillance since then”, and along with her family, she has been enduring authorities’ harassment.
In her 30 September post, translated by TCHRD, Jamyang Kyi explained how she was deceived into delivering 200 copies of the same two books to a fake buyer in Lhasa, only to be confiscated by a group of unknown officials later from the Lhasa bookstore. “If they don’t return us the books, it would cost us RMB 6,300. Even if we are not very concerned about the financial loss, it deeply saddens my heart to think that undeserved obstacles might threaten the survival of a newborn (referring to the newly published books). More worrying is the thought that they might take away the small speck of freedom we have in expressing our condition in writing.”
These developments in Jamyang Kyi’s case testifies the unending persecutions that Tibetan political prisoners suffer even after their release from detention. Tibetan intellectuals, singers and human rights defenders in Tibet pay a heavy price for demanding human rights.
– Report filed by EU, UN and HR Desk, DIIR –