Tibetan Filmmaker Imprisoned Before Olympics is Still Missing in China

Tibetan filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen and his cameraman Golog Jigme have been in prison somewhere in China for who knows why and who knows how long. His film, Leaving Fear Behind can and should be seen at www.leavingfearbehind.com. His mission (crime?) was to interview Tibetans on their thoughts about the Olympics. His timing was amazing, because he wrapped up just before the March 10 uprising. Although created just a few short months ago, this story would be poignant if the truth weren't so horrific. Here's info about their plight, then the update on the release.
All stills are from Leaving Fear Behind. Here is Dhondup Wangchen, the director.
Wife of arrested Tibetan Filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen appeals to IOC President Jacques Rogge
NOC Tibet[Monday, August 25, 2008 09:56]
London/Beijing, August 24 - A letter was sent today to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge asking once more for his support to free Dhondup Wangchen and Golog Jigme, the two Tibetan filmmakers who made the documentary film "Leaving fear Behind" *. Thousands of people around the world have joined this appeal. So far, there has been no response by the IOC concerning this matter.
Lhamo-Tso, wife of Dhondup Wangchen, appealed to Rogge to help her to free her husband. Dhondup Wangchen was arrested with his friend Golog Jigme in March 2008 for filming a documentary that contains critical remarks about the Olympics and Chinese rule in Tibet.
About the film: "Leaving Fear Behind" (www.leavingfearbehind.com) is a 25 minute documentary made by a Tibetan filmmaker inside Tibet. The self-taught filmmmaker, Dhondup Wangchen, and his monk cameraman, Golog Jigme, filmed testimonies of a range of people in Eastern Tibet, about their views on the Dalai Lama, the Beijing Olympics and Chinese rule. Each interviewee knew the risks they were taking in being filmed but were adamant that their faces be shown. Dhondup Wangchen managed to send his footage out of Tibet but was subsequently arrested. Both he and his cameraman are currently in Chinese custody.
Contact: Dechen Pemba, for Filming for Tibet: +44 778 482 3907
* The full text of Lhamo-Tso's letter reads:
Dear Mr. Rogge:
My name is Lhamotso and I am the wife of Dhondup Wangchen. It is with desperation and sorrow over the fate of my husband and Golog Jigme, who has been detained by Chinese authorities since March 2008. Their crime was to film Tibetans’ peaceful expression of their views on the XXIX Olympic Games.
My husband, Dhondup Wangchen, from Hualong, Haidong (Qinghai) was detained by authorities on or about March 26, 2008. He was held in Ershilipu Detention Center in Xining (Qinghai), and was last seen in Guangsheng Binguan on or about July 12, 2008.
Dhondup Wangchen spent most of his time helping the needy and serving the community. He’s a very good husband and also a good father to our four children. I appeal to the Chinese Government to release Dhondup. I urge you and the IOC to use your influence on China so that the host of the Olympic Games remains true to its promises of freedom of expression to the people.
Tomorrow, the Games in Beijing will be over, the people from all over the world will return home taking away the spot light from China. I beg you on behalf of my children and Dhondup’s family to use the last day and opportunity to speak out on behalf of my husband.
Lhamotso
Dhondup Wangchen in Leaving Fear Behind
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=22618
You can take action by writing letters via the following:
http://leavingfearbehind.com/take-action.html
Contact the IOC
CLICK HERE FOR A SAMPLE LETTER
President of the IOC
Jacques Rogge
Chateau de Vidy
Lausanne, 1003
Switzerland
Email: jacques.rogge@ioc.olympic.org
Phone 1: +41 21 621 67 46 (w) Phone 2: +41 79 43 31 022 (cell)
Fax: +41 21 621 63 53
Contact the Chinese government:
CLICK HERE FOR A SAMPLE LETTER
President of the People’s Republic of China
Hu Jintao Guojia Zhuxi
The State Council General Office
2 Fuyoujie, Xichengqu
Beijingshi 100017
People’s Republic of China
[Salutation: Your Excellency]
Premier of the People’s Republic of China
Wen Jiabao
The State Council General Office
9 Xihuangcheng Genbeijie
Beijingshi 100032
People’s Republic of China
Email: gazette@mail.gov.cn
[Salutation: Dear Prime Minister]
Minister of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China
Meng Jiangzhu Buzhang
Gong’anbu
14 Dongchang’anjie
Dongchengqu, Beijingshi 100741
People’s Republic of China
Fax: 011 86 10 63099216
[Salutation: Your Excellency]
Send copies of your correspondence to the Chinese Embassy in your country.
CHINESE EMBASSIES:
http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zwjg/2490/default.htm
Contact your embassy in China and ask them to express concern.
FOREIGN EMBASSIES IN CHINA:
http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/chn/lbfw/namelist/embassy%20list/
SUPPORT Filming for Tibet

NY Times Acknowledges Freedom is Squelched in China

Now you might think a blog called DisabilityNation would be biased toward two old ladies who are blind and need a cane. So ok, for a less, er, subjective report, the New York Times makes this story sound almost cute and normal. Note the lack of the words "freedom, liberty, dissent." Note the presence of the words "demonstrate, protest, disturbing public order". Maybe the NY Times doesn't see things so differently?
Too Old and Frail to Re-educate? Not in China
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: August 20, 2008
BEIJING — In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote.
The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, [are you listening, Lower East Side?] is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth.
But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying [my bold] to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.
They became the most recent examples of people punished for submitting applications to protest. A few would-be demonstrators have simply disappeared, [my bold] [yikes!] at least for the duration of the Games, squelching already diminished hopes that the influx of foreigners and the prestige of holding the Games would push China’s leaders to relax their tight grip on political expression.
“Can you imagine two old ladies in their 70s being re-educated through labor?” asked Li Xuehui, Ms. Wu’s son, who said the police told the two women that their sentence might remain in suspension if they stayed at home and stopped asking for permission to protest.
“I feel very sad and angry because we’re only asking for the basic right of living and it’s been six years, but nobody will do anything to help,” Mr. Li said.
[...] When the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to Beijing in 2001, ignoring critics who said China should not be rewarded for repression, its president, Jacques Rogge, offered assurances that the Games would invariably spur China toward greater openness.
But prospects dimmed even before the opening ceremony, when overseas journalists arrived to discover that China’s promise to provide uncensored Internet access [my bold] was riddled with caveats. The ensuing uproar did persuade the government to unblock some politically sensitive Web sites, but many others, including those that discuss Tibet and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, remain inaccessible at the Olympic press center.
[...] “In order to ensure smooth traffic flow, a nice environment and good social order, we will invite these participants to hold their demonstrations in designated places,” Liu Shaowu, the security director for Beijing’s Olympic organizing committee, said at a news conference. He described the creation of three so-called protest zones and suggested that a simple application process would provide Chinese citizens an avenue for free expression, a right that has long been enshrined in China’s Constitution but in reality is rarely granted.
But with four days left before the closing ceremony, the authorities acknowledge that they have yet to allow a single protest. They claim that most of the people who filed applications had their grievances addressed, obviating the need for a public expression of discontent.
Chinese activists say they are not surprised that the promise proved illusory. Li Fangping, a lawyer who has been arrested and beaten for his dogged representation of rights advocates, said there was no way the government would allow protesters to expose some of China’s most vexing problems, among them systemic corruption, environmental degradation and the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of residents for projects related to the Olympics.
“For Chinese petitioners, if their protest applications were approved, it would lead to a chain reaction of others seeking to voice their problems as well,” Mr. Li said.
During the past two decades, China has embraced a market economy [my bold] and shed some of the more onerous restrictions that dictated where people could live, whom they could marry and whether they could leave the country. But with political dissent and religious freedom, the government has been unrelenting.
[...] In recent months, the pressure has only intensified: scores of rights lawyers and political dissenters have been detained, and even the armies of migrant workers who built the Olympic stadiums have been encouraged to leave town, lest their disheveled appearances detract from the image of a clean, modern nation. [my bold] [oh, please, I can’t S T A N D it!]
“When you have guests coming over for dinner, you clean up the house and tell the children not to argue,” Mr. Bell said.
While the demands of Ms. Wu, 79, and Ms. Wang, 77, the protest applicants, might be seen as harmless, they threatened to expose the systemic problems that bedevil the lives of millions of Chinese. Like many disenchanted citizens, the two women, former neighbors, were seeking to draw attention to a government-backed real estate deal that promised to give them apartments in the new development that replaced their homes not far from Tiananmen Square. Six years later, [9/11 First Responder Alert!] they are living in ramshackle apartments on the outskirts of the city, and their demands for compensation have gone unanswered.
On Monday, when they returned to the police station to follow up on their protest applications, the women were told they had been sentenced to one year at a labor camp for “disturbing public order.” For the moment, the women have been allowed to return to their homes, but they have been warned that they could be sent to a detention center at any moment, relatives said.
[...] At a news conference on Wednesday, Wang Wei, the vice president of Beijing’s Olympic organizing committee, was asked about the lack of protests. He said it showed the system was working. “I’m glad to hear that over 70 protest issues have been solved through consultation, dialogue,” he said. “This is a part of Chinese culture.”
But human rights advocates say that instead of pointing the way toward a more open society, the Olympics have put China’s political controls on display.
“Given this moment when the international spotlight is shining on China, when so much of the international media are in Beijing, it’s unfathomable why the authorities are intensifying social control,” said Sharon Hom, the executive director of Human Rights in China. “The truth is they’re sending a clear and disturbing message, one they’re not even trying to hide, which is we’re not even interested in hearing dissenting voices.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/sports/olympics/21protest.html?ex=1219896000&en=bbbd73a1742fcf00&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Support Students for a Free Tibet

[...] Tibetans and Tibet activists from across North America were joined by tens of thousands of San Franciscans to protest China's Olympic torch. Behind a massive banner reading "San Francisco Says: No Torch in Tibet," thousands marched down the planned torch relay route, forcing officials to change the route at the last minute in an attempt to keep the enormous protests away from the torch. At least two torchbearers publicly showed support for Tibet during their torch run, one displaying a Tibetan flag alongside the torch. [my bold]

Officials were finally forced to cancel the closing ceremony. After celebrating the huge show of support in London, Paris and San Francisco, Tibetans and their supporters finished the day by acknowledging the continued protests in Tibet, vowing to keep up our efforts in solidarity with people like the fifteen monks at Labrang Monastery who, just yesterday, courageously – and desperately – staged a protest before foreign journalists on a state-managed tour.
In light of our collective efforts to amplify the voice of Tibetans inside Tibet, government resolutions in the US and the EU are being passed in support of Tibet and the IOC is holding "urgent talks" with senior members of the Olympic movement to discuss the impact pro-Tibet protests are having on the relay and on the Games themselves.
Let's help them make the correct decision.
It is critical that the IOC and Olympic sponsors be forced to react proactively to the increasingly dire situation in Tibet. It is only one month before the Chinese government proposes to take its blood-stained torch through the streets of Lhasa and to the top of Mt. Everest. Take action now and demand that Tibet be removed from the torch relay route!
> CLICK HERE TO SEND AN EMAIL to IOC President Jacques Rogge.
> CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION to contact your National Olympic Committee (NOC).
> CLICK HERE FOR TALKING POINTS for calling your NOC and a sample letter for mail/email.
For additional info, visit http://www.notorchintibet.org/

Reporters Without Borders Uncovers Incriminating Olympic Committee Memo

Beijing Olympics 4 April 2008
IOC internal memo minimises events in Tibet and boycott calls
Reporters Without Borders has obtained a copy of an 11-page internal memo which International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge sent to all IOC members setting out a communication strategy for the Tibet crisis and the debate about a boycott of the Olympic Games.
"As the Olympic movement meets in Beijing, we were hoping the IOC would finally pluck up the courage to ask the Chinese authorities to stop the violence in Tibet and human rights violations in China," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said. "Instead the IOC has sent its members a memo minimising China’s abuses and reiterating the position that the Olympic movement does not meddle in politics."
Ménard added: "Jacques Rogge needs to end the Olympic movement’s disgraceful silence, which is endangering the success of the Olympic Games. The IOC needs to tell the Chinese authorities that they have to respect the commitments they gave in 2001 when China was awarded these games."
The purpose of Rogge’s 17 March memo was to tell all IOC members what position they should take in response to the Tibet crisis and the media "speculation" about a boycott. In his introduction, the IOC president says the events in Tibet are disturbing but will not jeopardise the "success" of the Olympic Games. He also says that no "credible" government or organisation is supporting the idea of a boycott.
[...] The memo repeats several times that the Olympic Games are serving as a "catalyst" for a dialogue on Tibet and its independence but rules out IOC involvement in the resolution of the "complex" crisis. The message that Rogge wants to get across is that "The IOC shares the world’s desire for the Chinese government to bring about a peaceful resolution as quickly as possible." But the memo adds on the next page that the IOC does not raise such matters with countries that host the games.
Regarding the staging of protests as the Olympic flame passes, the memo says: "Demonstrators should understand that they take part in demonstrations at their own risk. (...) Actions of local authorities may include arrest, detention or restraint. The IOC will not interfere with the actions of local authorities."
Reporters Without Borders has learned that the IOC organised a training session on information in times of crisis for members of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) on 7 March in Beijing. "After seeing the propaganda put out by the authorities during the Tibet crisis, we question the effectiveness of the training offered by the IOC," Reporters Without Borders said.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=26461