Following article was posted on Angry Chinese Blogger blog on October 31, 2010
In May 2010, Beijing introduced new regulations in Tibet, prohibiting the anonymous printing or copying of documents in Lhasa. The regulation mandate that all printers, publishers, and copy shops in the region must record details of all customers, and make them available to security forces on demand.
Private citizens must present their ID cards before they can have material printed, and companies must provide both their business details and details of the manger who ordered the material. In all cases the printer/copy shop must retain details of the material being produced, as well as the number of individual items printed.
Regulations apply both to original material, and photocopies or existing material.
According to Beijing the measure was necessary to stop unspecified criminals committing unspecified criminal acts, and are to be applied equally to all printed media other than photographs.
However reports indicate that the regulations are almost exclusively being used to prohibit or discourage the printing of Tibetan language material.
The strongest evidence of this bias comes from statements made by printers/copy stores themselves.
Statements given by some printers/copy stores in Lhasa indicate that security forces had explicitly instructed them to watch out for Tibetan language material, and not to reproduce it if they had not first translated it first. Others stated that they were either instructed not to print any Tibetan language material, or that they could not to print any Tibetan language material without prior permission from security forces.
According to some Pro-Tibetan groups, Beijing introduced the regulations in order to stop Tibetans from printing leaflets criticizing China and Han Migrants, or from disseminating information that Beijing wishes to conceal. For example, printing news sheets detailing Han abuses.
According to China-Watchers the measure will not only effect those wishing to print anti-Han leaflets and/or news sheets, but also those wishing to preserve or disseminate items pertaining Tibetan culture. For example, it would impact upon schools wishing to provide supplementary educational material to their students in the Tibetan language, as well as monasteries wishing to provide local people with an unabridged version of their traditional teaching by producing documents containing details that have been excised from the Han approved version of Tibetan Buddhist teachings.
China-Watchers have compared the restrictions to so-called “Jim Crow” that were put in place in many US states in order to disadvantage African-Americans by creating legal “loopholes” that made it difficult for them to access services, forced them to use low quality segregated services, or which leveled requirements that many African-Americans found intimidating. For example, laws that placed polling booths inside court houses, or which required fluency in written English.
Most Tibetans cannot afford to own Xerox machines or laser printers, and so must use commercial facilities. The majority of which are Han owned. The majority of which are either staffed by Han who never learned to read Tibetan script, or whom have only a basic level of Tibetan reading ability.
Many Han colonists living in Tibet have never mastered more than basic Tibetan. Either written or spoken. Though Tibetans are commonly expected to have a high level of fluency in Mandarin if they wish to advance.
—-
Angry Chinese Blogger claims it disseminates “news and views about China that the big media can’t, or won’t, tell you”
