SHORT INFO
Name: Jamyang Kyi
Nationality: China / Tibet
Arrested: 01 Apr 08
Blog: Jamyang Kyi (Tibetan / no longer continued)
Wikipedia: Jamyang Kyi
Committee to Protect Bloggers: Jamyang Kyi
BIOGRAPHY
Jamyang Kyi is a famous popular Tibetan singer of Tibet. She is also a Tibetan feminist and a writer, a journalist and a prominent television broadcaster. She was born in 1965 in Amdo, northeastern region of Tibet.
As a singer Jamyang Kyi has recorded several albums since the ’90s. Besides music, she has presented programs for the Tibetan version of a state-run television station in Qinghai during more than 20 years. Since 2005, she composed essays on the fate of Tibetan women. She published articles including one on the illegal dealings in girls and the statute of women in the Tibetan society. She described in particular the existence of forced marriages.
She also published articles on the education and inter-ethnics relations. After her trip to the United States in 2006, she also was very interested in the protection of the culture and to the equality between men and women, and published texts on these subjects on her blog.
In the context of the 2008 Tibetan unrest, Jamyang Kyi was arrested on April 1, 2008 by plainclothes police from her workplace at the state-run Qinghai TV station. It was speculated that she was detained at a guest house for interrogation ((Radio Free Asia » Leading Tibetan Writer, Performer, Producer Arrested)).
The arrest has not been officially confirmed by Chinese authorities. Still, an 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. According to another Xining source, Security people have gone to Jamyang Kyi’s house to search her computer, her mailing list, and contact numbers and have taken all these away ((Phayul.com » Leading Tibetan Writer, Performer, Producer Arrested)).
Other sources, including Jamyang Kyi’s husband, could not reveal the accusations behind her arrest. According to the reports, Jamyang Kyi was not involved in Tibetan politics and was well aware of provoking the Chinese authorities ((New York Times » Prominent Tibetan Figure Held by China, Friends Say))
