Leading Tibetan Writer, Performer, Producer Arrested

By RADIO FREE ASIA
April 15, 2008

Chinese authorities in Tibet have arrested a leading Tibetan writer, television producer, and performer in the midst of a major crackdown on anti-Chinese protests in the region.

Plainclothes state security officers escorted Jamyang Kyi, who has travelled widely and performed and lectured in the United States, from her office at state-owned Qinghai TV on April 1, an authoritative source told RFA's Tibetan service. "She never returned," a source in Siling [in Chinese, Xining] said. "People were speculating that she was detained in a guesthouse for interrogation."

Another authoritative source in Beijing said she had been formally arrested by the Xining Public Security Bureau, although the charges against her were unknown. In China, a formal arrest almost always precedes a conviction. "Security people went to Jamyang Kyi's house to search her computer, her mailing list, and contact numbers and took all these away," another source in Xining said.

Television producer, musician, activist, blogger

Jamyang Kyi, in her 40s, has worked as a producer in the Tibetan-language section of state-run Qinghai TV for two decades. She is well-known among Tibetans as an activist on women's issues, and she toured the United States to sing and lecture in 2006.

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