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Tibet’s most famous woman writer and blogger was accused of taking photographs of military installations and arrested by police after she returned home briefly to Lhasa, the capital.
The detention of Woeser, who, like many Tibetans, goes by a single name, underscores the nervousness of the authorities in the Himalayan city, where 22 people were killed and hundreds of offices and businesses were set alight when Tibetans, restive under Beijing rule, rioted in the streets in March.
Eight police arrived at the home of Woeser’s mother on Thursday and presented the writer with a summons to accompany them for questioning. Her husband, the author Wang Lixiong, said: “They had used the wrong name on the document so I insisted that they correct the name before they could take her away. I reminded them that they had to bring her home within the stipulated 12 hours.”
She was held for questioning for eight hours by several officers who said that they were acting on a tip-off from a member of the public who had seen her photographing army and police positions in Lhasa from a taxi.
Mr Wang, who spoke on behalf of his wife because he was worried for her safety, told The Times: “She told them that it was not illegal to take photographs in a public place and she had not visited any secret areas or military installations. They had no legal basis for holding her.”
The police searched her mother’s home and removed several documents as well as Mr Wang’s laptop. They hacked his password, checked all his documents and required Woeser to erase every photograph that showed a policeman or army officer.
Mr Wang said: “I can’t say whether their intention was to intimidate. But if they can do this to an influential writer who has done nothing more than take photographs, then one can only imagine the kind of threat that ordinary people in Tibet must feel every day.”
The couple decided to return home to Beijing but first organised a reunion party with Woeser’s many family and friends in Lhasa. Many did not attend, apparently afraid of possible consequences after her arrest. The couple flew back to Beijing on Saturday, less than 48 hours after her summons and six days into a planned month-long visit to Lhasa.
Woeser has become one of the best-known Tibetans, first as a poet whose works were approved by the Government and then as a dissident after her first book of prose was banned in 2003. She has not been allowed to publish in China since, but the restrictions have failed to deter her. She was forced to place a blog that she began in 2005 on a server outside China after it was hacked and closed. Her current blog — woeser.middle-way.net — is the most popular site for many Tibetans and has recorded three million hits since she launched it on an overseas server early last year.
The Tibetan capital remains under lockdown. The city is patrolled by police and paramilitary forces, many deployed around the Jokhang temple, the holiest shrine in Tibetan Buddhism in the heart of the Old City. On the pilgrim route that circles the temple at least four teams of paramilitary police are on guard around the clock.
Each comprises five men carrying rifles who patrol a section of the route. Buddhists twirling prayer wheels and performing prostrations wend their way among the armed men. Some of the teams, dressed in camouflage, have recently been replaced by patrols carrying what appear to be teargas launchers in tubes on their backs.
There is little sign of increased security in the areas of Lhasa where most ethnic Han Chinese live.
Literary life
— Born in Lhasa in 1966 to a Tibetan mother and a Han father who was an army officer, she grew up speaking, and mainly writes in, Chinese
— Returned to work in Tibet in the 1990s and made a name for herself publishing collections of her poems
— Her collection of travel stories, Notes on Tibet, was published in 2003 and swiftly banned
— After the March riots, hackers hijacked her blog, removed its content and left an animation of China’s five-star national flag fluttering below the message: “Long Live the People’s Republic of China! Down will [with] all Tibetan independence elements!!!”
Source: Times research
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I have been living in China for ten years. The worst characteristic of this country is not the deceipt of the outsiders, but their self-deceipt. How can you expect foreigners to understand you better if you don't even understand yourselves under the countless layers of lies and (self-)deceipt?
Fab, Shanghai,
u dont have to go further, just comedowm from Mao era, all chinese leaders are power hungers, take Mao, he killed millions of his own people and collegues. whenever there comes leader who thinks of mass, Mao with all crocks, dumped them. This is real china still haunting on. Free tibet and china
dorjee , delhi , india
Further instigating hates among Tibetans against China will likely cause the opposite effect to have caused nothing to be achieved but tighter grip against futher rioting and meaningless bloodshed. Why can't we encourage them to live peacefully together to work on World's real issues: Poverty etc.
William, glassgow, UK
i have read some of her article. I can tell that she is that kind of people are very selffish no mater she is tibant ,chinese or western.So the way she think only about herself, and don't really care about others.i thin she should learn from her friends A. future world need more diversity n united
cs, leeds,
a united world will befinit for all human being..
we can in search of identiy for many years later just like developed country try to teach kids started to think individully.
cs, leeds, uk
Ella, Shenzhen, China
The person in NY appears to be a "Tibetan exile". He will echo the language of the West. Hope one fine day he and others will make a trip to Tibet and see for themselves rather than just assume an adverse situation commonly given by biased western media.
260808
Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
"Tibetans together with Han Chinese live happily in China"
Yes obviously that's why there has been riots in Tibet and the security clampdown!
I Suppose all the riots are the fault of the devilish Dalai and his friends in the 'western media' who want to split China, just like in the Opium wars.
Mike, Nottingham, England
to Michael, Garden City, USA
I am Chinese and I live overseas for years. I stayed in the States for 7 years. It is Americans who were brainwashed by your media that should feel embarrassing.
Tibetans together with Han Chinese live happily in China. Only those who live in India are not.
Yin Yang, London, UK
When Olympic was going on in Beijing, Tibetans in Tibet are being severely ristricted and denied free movements across Tibet. Tibetans are being arrested and totured in jail. China is extremely insecure when it comes to Tibetan issue because they have been lying. Why Tibet is closed?
Lee, Kawloon, Hong Kong
"22 people were killed and hundreds of offices and businesses (Han Chinese?) were set alight when Tibetans... rioted in the streets..."
Any government would lock it down to maintain law & order. Dissidents would of course come under surveillance/arrest. The Chinese are correctly doing their job.
Chandran, Georgetown, Malaysia
A brutal regime, its sympathizers and accomplices by words and deeds, the "Might is Right" mentality--a distinctive attribute of the national character of the Chinese as a people, and Han chauvinism underlie the woes of China in general and Tibet in particular.
Now that tne Red China is rising...may God bless us all.
Linus, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
yes she writes her blog, using chinese installed internet infrastructure and chinese installed technology. If she lived under the dalai lama, shed still be working in the fields, or as a monks personal slave
David, Weymouth, UK
@Ella in Shenzhen
Shenzhen may be in China but it's a million miles from Tibet both culturally and linguistically. You may as well be in America.
Donald Smith, London, UK
Like that's any different from the US or the UK (google Clayton Patterson and David Gates) and say that the UK or the US is any different. At least the Chinese claim that she was taking photos of military installations, not just of police or firefighters.
nabes, london,
I can only imagine how embarrassing it must be for Chinese people, especially those living outside of China, to acknowledge that their government is jailing and persecuting its own people for expressing their opinions. No wonder they leap to the defense of the cops and the government.
Michael, Garden City, USA
I was just wondering how come the person in New York , USA is more clear of the things happened in China? you should go and then speak, and it will prove that you are definitely wrong in the opinion of China!
Ella, Shenzhen, China
I like it how the Chinese Police is controling and securing the country and its people from terrorist Lama atacks.
Are 22 death burned and killed by Lama supporters payed by the West not enough for the western media!
3 cheers to the Chinese Police and the Chinese Army!!!
maolyn, shanghai, china
I have visited her blog.
I have to say she wrote a lot of rumors but very little fact.
michael lee, london,
Once again China shows the world that Tibet is ruled as a police state where anyone taking photos is detained & their pix erased. China only presents a facade of Tibet to the world but the real situation for Tibetans is life in colonized police state.
Wangchuk, New York, USA
If the Chinese actually believed the majority of the Tibetans supported them all this paranoid security would not be necessary.
The fact is Tibet is a colony in lockdown.
Mike, Nottm, UK