Two incitement cases emerging from Yunnan
Dui Hua has uncovered an endangering state security (ESS) case in the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province. Dehong is on the border with Myanmar. Most details about the case and the suspects are unknown except that a person named He Duwang (何都望) was arrested for inciting subversion. The arrest was approved by the Yingjiang County People’s Procuratorate in January 2021. Since ESS crimes have to be tried at intermediate people’s courts or higher, the jurisdiction of the case was transferred to the Dehong Prefecture People’s Procuratorate in early March.
Also uncovered in Yunnan in late March, Kunming Wuhua District People’s Procuratorate approved the arrest of Liu Chenglong (柳成龙) for inciting subversion. Similarly, the jurisdiction of the case will eventually be transferred to Kunming People’s Procuratorate or Yunnan People’s Procuratorate.
Dui Hua will continue to monitor developments in the two cases.
Tibetans tried for inciting splittism in Qinghai region
Qinghai is another province in China with a large population of Tibetans. Dui Hua’s Human Rights Journal has previously noted that the Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is one of top ethnic regions with inciting splittism cases. While Tibetans are not the only population to face charges in this region, they make up the majority of the province’s cases.
Dui Hua has recently uncovered six previously unknown names who were tried for inciting splittism by the intermediate courts in Qinghai. However, because judicial transparency has deteriorated in recent years, little else can be learned about the cases.
Similar to how the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble targets petitioners and activists, the crime of inciting splittism is almost exclusively used against ethnic minorities. Tibetans can be charged with this crime for simply possessing a picture of Dalai Lama or other religious items deemed by government to have connections with the Tibetan independence movement.
Little is known about the six people other than the criminal charge and their names in Chinese: 先巴才让, 索南木扎西, 多旦, 夸卓, 桑杰, and 华军才让. They were tried between March 2019 and June 2020. The outcomes of the trials and their current whereabouts are unknown.