Activist group demands Shokjang's release on world press freedom day/ENG

2016. május 4./Phayul.com/TibetPress

eredeti cikk

By Tenzin Dharpo

DHARAMSHALA, May 4: The Activist group Students for a Free Tibet staged a street theatre in protest of the incarceration of Tibetan writer Drukar Gyal, known more prolifically by his pen name Shokjang, on the World Press Freedom Day at McLeod Ganj’s main square yesterday.

The street theatre dramatized the court proceeding of the intermediate public court in Malho prefecture which sentenced the writer to three years in Chinese prison on charges of ‘inciting separatism’.

SFT India’s Grassroots Director told journalists, “With this street theatre action, we want to highlight Shokjang’s case and at the same time bring to light the plight of other writers and intellectuals who are suffering under the CCP’s regime. We urge you all to take action for his immediate release.”

Shokjang was sentenced on Feb. 17 this year after almost a year since he was arrested on March 19 last year.

Gu Chu Sum, a former political prisoners’ movement earlier said that a group of almost 40 Tibetans including his family and friends visited officials in Rebkong who read out the charges against Shokjang. Any trial or court proceedings leading up to the sentencing did not take place, the NGO citing sources from inside Tibet, mentioned.

The students’ activist group had made huge replica of a pen symbolizing the annexation of freedom of expression of intellectuals inside Tibet, urging people to take action through a petition calling for the writer’s release. The petition is addressed at the Malho Peoples Court and China’s Minister of Justice Wu Aiying.

Tenzin Tselha, National Director of SFT India, said that Shokjang’s case shows that China’s claim of being a country with ‘rule of law’ is nothing but a “symbolic entity”. “The hand written appeal letter by Shokjang from prison is a new form of resistance by Tibetans inside Tibet. I believe that Shokjang chose to directly challenge the CCP regime by writing this letter,” Tselha said.

Following his sentencing, the Tibetan writer appealed against his wrongful punishment in a 17 page appeal letter, written in Tibetan and Chinese and asserting his innocence to the Higher People’s Court in Qinghai where he hopes “the objective truth” will be sought.

The writer charged for ‘instigating separatism’ says his written work did not amount to him being deemed a separatist. “If one talks about instigating separatism, I have not written even a word of separatism, much less instigated it. If I write about an incident in which I suffered harm, and that becomes an unfounded accusation against me, and I write an appeal to the court about the incident, that does not make me a separatist,” he wrote in the letter dated Feb. 24.