Dugkho, a brave hero of Tibet who gave his life.
Image: via courageous Tibetans inside Tibet
Updated 12/14/18-Reports from Ngaba area of eastern Tibet’s Amdo region of a further self-immolation protests.
Image: via courageous Tibetans inside Tibet
Two 16 year-old Tibetan boys named as Gendun Gyatso and Choekyi Gyatso self-immolated Saturday December 8th against China’s violent and illegal occupation of Tibet.
In that tragic land, once a free and peaceful nation, reports today of a Tibetan who self-immolated in protest of China’s illegal and violent occupation of Tibet. Details are few at the time of this post. A Tibetan youth, named as Dhorbo, set himself ablaze on November 4 2018 in Ngaba region of eastern Tibet’s Amdo region self-immolation.
Image: courtesy of the bravery of Tibetans inside occupied Tibet
Thanks to those immensely courageous Tibetans for getting news of this to the wider world.
Here’s the latest on our action regarding the International Standards Organization, they’re the guys with responsibility for among all other standardization, awarding and approving country codes. Which are used by the Unicode Consortium to classify and enable country flag emojis, and enjoyed across social media by folks around the digital planet.
Our letter to the Secretary General (Sergio Mujica) was ignored so we went public with our appeal and featured couple days back a post here on the issue. Within a few hours our team over on Twitter received a communication from ISO.
We took a closer look at that code (ISO 3166) and the organization states:
“As a general rule, the ISO 3166 maintenance agency does not assign official country code elements to other geopolitical areas or countries that are not member states of the UN”
Which raises the obvious question.Why has the ISO granted distinct country codes (that enable and authorize emoji country flags) to Western Sahara and Palestine, both of which are not recognized as member states of the United Nations, yet not to occupied Tibet?
We’ll continue to expose this clear double-standard and demand a response from the ISO, meanwhile if you would like to join that effort the Secretray General may be easily contacted on Twitter at @ISOSecGen
Sergio Mujica, Secretary-General of the ISO
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.
ISO Headquarters in Geneva
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.
Image: archivenet
Even a glance at the news streams reveals just how screwed are global politics, none more so perhaps than within the United Nations. Which this week is meeting to appoint, or more correctly reappoint (minus any genuine opposition) a number of states onto its Human Rights Council. The list of those (a few will be stepping down at the end of the year to replaced by equally worrying nations) set to legislate and investigate human rights includes Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, China, Cuba, DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Now there’s a bunch of authorities we can all reply upon to champion free-speech, civil, political and human rights, not!
Meanwhile the head of the European Union’s Foreign Policy, Federica Mogherini and government representatives are keeping silent on the ethical concerns on having human rights abusers and oppressive regimes awarded responsibility for protecting freedoms and rights.
More: HERE
Image via @tibettruth (double click for larger view)
RFA Tibetan Service Director Kalden Lodoe
Image: print-screen
A question. Why is Mr Kalden Lodoe, Tibetan Director of Radio Free Asia (Tibetan Service) approving from his colleagues output such as this?
“And in March 2008, a riot in Lhasa followed the suppression by Chinese police of four days of peaceful Tibetan protests and led to the destruction of Han Chinese shops in the city and deadly attacks on Han Chinese residents. The riot then sparked a wave of mostly peaceful protests against Chinese rule that spread across Tibet and into Tibetan-populated regions of western Chinese provinces.” (emphasis added) Source: RFA-Tibetan Pilgrim Sees Restrictions, Heavy Police Presence in Lhasa 2018-08-31
You would be forgiven on reading the quote above to wonder if it had been written by an official within China’s Ministry Of Foreign Affairs, or its propaganda channel, Xinhua news. Why do we say this?
The syntax used has a striking similarity with terminology used by official Chinese sources. The description as ‘a riot’ of the Tibetan response to a brutal oppression in Lhasa during 2008 is precisely the narrative used by China’s regime at that time. Seeking to denigrate and misrepresent Tibetans as rioters, engaged in criminal behavior, while conveninently ignoring the legitimate protests against China’s illegal and vicious rule. The reference to ‘deadly attacks on Han Chinese residents‘ is also borrowed from China’s disinformation on those demonstrations.
The closing sentence concludes by endorsing the fact-free claims of China’s regime regarding Tibetan territory by repeating their propaganda: ‘…that spread across Tibet and into Tibetan-populated regions of western Chinese provinces.’ The so-called western Chinese provinces referred to in reality are the traditional Tibetan regions of Amdo and Kham.
So if Chinese propagandists did not write such baseless drivel who did? Well the people responsible are employed by Radio Free Asia (Tibetan Service) in Washington DC. A body influenced and controlled by the State Department, via the US Agency For Global Media. There is also, so some have discussed, a pro-China sway within the organization, ultimately though the English version of such reports is down to a Richard Finney. An individual who consistently features such misleading and toxic propaganda into reports on Tibet, betcha his State Department controllers must be very pleased with his contributions. After all they have for decades appeased China’s bogus claim over Tibet!
