Breaking The Silence Of International Standards Organization And Unicode Consortium On Tibetan Flag Emoji

Image:aircargonews

Subscribers and visitors to our site may recall that recently we launched an online campaign to lobby the International Standards Organization, since it is the authorizing body that classifies and approves emoji country flags. Presently it doesn’t endorse Tibet as a distinct territory, but classifies it as part of China. This means there exists no emoji of the Tibetan flag that can be used within social media platforms. As there are for Palestine and Western Sahara.

Image:archivenet

Partner organizations within the Unicode Consortium (such as Facebook, Apple, et al) follow the lead of the ISO and have subsequently not requested or initiated a Tibetan flag emoji. We regarded this a grossly unfair and a form of censorship and have lobbied those corporations with voting rights and pressed the case for Tibet. In addition on September 17, 2018 we sent an appeal to Mr Sergio Mujica ISO Secretary-General highlighting the inconsistencies of his organization with regard to classifying emoji country flags and requesting that a review be made with respect to Tibet and its flag.

No response has been received, and despite further communications to the ISO requesting the courtesy of a response to our appeal, Mr Mujica has chosen to ignore the concerns presented to him. Given the weeks which have passed since contacting his office and the lack of response from the ISO Twitter account we have decided to make public our appeal.

Image: ISO

We do so to better inform our many supporters and friends worldwide and to highlight what is clearly double-standards operated by the ISO and Unicocde Consortium which happily approved emoji flags for Palestine and Western Sahara yet is appeasing the Chinese regime by effectively censoring an Tibetan flag emoji.

The full copy of our appeal to the ISO Secretary General may be read here https://www.docdroid.net/jZAVRMh/isoletter.pdf For ease of reference we have highlighted key sections of the communication.

We shall continue to press the ISO for a response and meanwhile report upon and expose those within the Unicode Consortium who are blocking users of social media the freedom to post an emoji of the Tinetan national flag.