Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Tashi delek.
It's a pleasure to see so many of you here, Dr. Lobsang, Ala, Pema, Ngodup, and all of the members of Parliament, both based here in north America and also based in India. It is truly a pleasure to have you here and to hear you open your statement by speaking Tibetan, which is very important and a matter of some controversy the last time we discussed Tibet at this committee.
As you know I'm the representative of a community that is the pride of the Tibetan-Canadian community. There are 7,000 constituents in my riding of Parkdale—High Park, and I take their concerns very seriously, both as their representative and also as the chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Tibet.
I wanted to ask you a number of questions. The first one I wanted to start with, Dr. Sangay, dovetails with the appearance of Pema Wangdu, who also goes by the name of Baimawangdui. He was here at the committee speaking about the situation of Tashi Wangchuk. That's the Tibetan individual who was detained in 2016 and indicted in 2017 on charges of “inciting separatism”.
As you know, his alleged crime was advocating for the cultural rights of Tibetans to study in their own language. His efforts to promote Tibetan language instruction were picked up by The New York Times. The government of Canada, our government, requested and was denied permission to attend his trial, which took place on January 4th. After the appearance of Pema Wangdu at this committee on May 22, he was actually sentenced to five years in prison. That prompted our government to issue a statement through the Embassy of Canada in China. It says:
Mr Tashi Wangchuk, a Tibetan language advocate was detained in January 2016 for peacefully raising concern about the lack of Tibetan-language education in Yushu County, and sentenced on May 22, 2018 to five years in prison for inciting separatism. Canada calls on the Government of China to release Tashi Wangchuk immediately and unconditionally. Canada urges the Chinese government to uphold its own Constitution and laws, and to respect its international human rights obligations. Canada supports the February 2018 United Nations Special Rapporteurs statement, which condemns the detention of Mr Tashi Wangchuk as the criminalization of linguistic and cultural rights advocacy.
Can you tell me, Dr. Sangay, what is your view of the importance of Tibetan language instruction in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and the arrest and subsequent conviction and sentencing of Mr. Tashi Wangchuk?