China locks up Tibetans for sending email

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Tech Eye
By Nick Farrell
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File Photo: A worker at a Beijing office checks stories and photos of the Dalai Lama on the Google China search (Google.cn) page. Google has threatened to pull out of China after a series of cyber attacks originating from that nation. This week the company announced it would stop censoring Google.cn and within hours it lifted its own self-censorship policy in China thereby allowing Chinese internet users for the first time to access "taboo" topics like the Dalai Lama, the Tiananmen massacre and the Falun Gong. (Photo: STR / AFP / Getty Images)

As Google makes headlines for standing up to Chinese censorship, Reporters Without Borders said that more than 50 Tibetans have been arrested for sending reports, photos or videos on the world wide wibble.

The group said a blog known on the web as “Dasher” who received a 10-year prison sentence on charges of “separatism”.

Apparently the sin was that he sent reports and photos of the protests which China denied ever happened.

According to a RSF the repression has never stopped since the March 2008 uprising in the Tibetan regions.

The persecution of Tibetans who take risks to send evidence of the human rights situation abroad is a tragic illustration of the state of exception that reigns in Tibet, the report said.

Tibetan journalists allege that a re-education campaign in the Tibetan county of Sog has resulted in the arrest of several Tibetans who refused to comply with the “Love your religion, love your country” campaign, RSF said.

We thought the Chinese thought that religion was the opium of the people and Tibet would no longer need it once it became the Chinese province that Bejing believes it is.