Arrested in Tibet

This Summer, a 24-​​year-​​old Taiwanese-​​American woman named Wen Yan-​​King set off for Tibet.

Assured that she would be pro­tected by her American pass­port she trav­eled into areas that were strictly off-​​limits to for­eign­ers. What she found were towns turned into war-​​zones and an atmos­phere of fear and intim­i­da­tion unlike any­thing she had expe­ri­enced in her life. Before she left, she couldn’t help tak­ing a few pho­tographs of a mil­i­tary base, and was promptly arrested and charged with ‘leak­ing state secrets’. She was told that her American cit­i­zen­ship meant noth­ing as she was trav­el­ing on her Taiwanese papers and that she would be treated as a Chinese national. She found her­self fac­ing the very real pos­si­bil­ity of time in a Chinese prison with no one to vouch for her.

Rebecca Novick spoke to her shortly after her return to Dharamsala, India, about her ter­ri­fy­ing ordeal. Wen begins by describ­ing the atmos­phere dri­ving into the town of Kardze in the Kham region of Eastern Tibet that had become a cen­ter of China’s crack­down after the protests.

Wen Yan-​​King is cur­rently work­ing as a com­mu­nity orga­nizer in Dharamsala, India, with the fol­low­ing orga­ni­za­tions: Raise Tibetan Flags Campaign and Rogpa: Friends & Helpers.