Dharamshala — Tibetan language rights activist Tashi Wangchuk detained again by Chinese authorities on October 22, 2024, over allegedly spreading misinformation about China and making accusations against government policy in his videos on the social media. He was released after 15 days in detention.
Tashi Wangchuk is a Tibetan businessman, language advocate and former political prisoner. Tashi Wangchuk spent five years in prison for his efforts to protect the teaching of the Tibetan language in Tibetan schools.
Although he was released in 2021, he was detained again in 2022 by the Chinese authorities, who interrogated him. He was attacked by a group of masked men on August 19, 2023. Then he went to hospitals, but the staff refused to admit him and the doctors refused any medical treatment. The hotel owners refused him a room for the night. So he spent the night in hospital on a stool, with feeling of helpless.
According to the sources, Tibetan language rights activist Tashi Wangchuk was again detained by Chinese authorities in the city of Yushul, Kham province, Tibet, from October 22 to November 4, 2024, for allegedly spreading misinformation about China and making accusations against government policy in his videos that shared on the Chinese app Douyin (TikTok).
Tashi Wangchuk shared three Chinese documents on his social networks on November 12, 2024, showing that he was recently detained by Chinese police in the Yushul city. The documents show that he was released on November 4, 2024 after 15 days in the Chinese detention in the Yushul City.
It's not known if he has been beaten or tortured, as he was last year, and due to China's restrictions and monitoring of the flow of information out of Tibet, it is difficult to investigate and gather more information about him from Tibet.
According to previous report of Tibet Post, Tashi Wangchuk travelled to Darlak County in eastern Tibet, on the evening of August 19, 2023, and visited the Nationality College in Darlak County. He noticed that he was being followed by a car wherever he went. After trying many hotels, he finally found a room and stayed there, but suddenly a group of men arrived and forced him to open the door, and then he was beaten and kicked by a group of masked men for 10 minutes.
Tashi Wangchuk begged the group to stop attacking him and asked the hotel owner to contact the police. The police arrived at his hotel room at around 9pm and took him to the police station for questioning, where Tashi Wangchuk was held until around 11.30pm.
Tashi Wangchuk wrote," I told the police that I needed a record of the report, in which I hoped to record the course of the assault and the time and place of the assault, and they would find out who was behind the instructions and the arrangements, and shortly afterwards, at 23.30, they began to take a statement, which lasted an hour, and then told me to go back."
The Tibetan language adocate wrote, "I went back to look for a hotel and searched for about an hour without finding one, but during that time there was a car that kept following me, and then I went back to the police station and asked one of the police officers to take me to a small hotel, and after the police officers had taken me to the small hotel, the owner of the hotel asked me to leave his hotel."
"Then I left the small hotel, walked for a long time to find a big hotel, they said they have no room, then I asked them to sit in the hotel lobby until dawn, the hotel said that today the Public Security Bureau issued a notice not to allow a person to stay in the hotel, and showed me the notice," he added.
"While I was sitting there, the hotel received a phone call, they said it was from Public Security Bureau, then requested me to leave, the hotel said that they were afraid that the hotel would be closed in the future, and then I went to another hotel, but it was closed at that time," Tashi Wangchuk explained.
"Then I went to the hospital in Darlak County. I said I had been beaten up and needed a head CT to keep evidence, saying that the CT was break down. We found an empty seat on the first floor of the hospital, and a doctor came a while later and drove me to the ground floor, and then a Tibetan doctor came behind me and told me to leave the hospital, and then I sat on the stool on the ground floor for the rest of the night," the former Tibetan political prisoner said.
