Power of One: Help filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen

Filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen

Dhondup Wangchen, 36, was arrested in March 2008 for “incit­ing sep­a­ratism” after con­duct­ing nearly a hun­dred inter­views with ordi­nary Tibetans for a doc­u­men­tary shot with­out offi­cial approval in Tibet. The doc­u­men­tary, Leaving Fear Behind, was edited abroad and dis­trib­uted to for­eign jour­nal­ists dur­ing the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Last month, judi­cial author­i­ties dis­missed Wangchen’s self-​​appointed lawyer, who reported that his client had been tor­tured. Instead, the court will appoint a lawyer for Wangchen, an action that vio­lates China’s own crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure law and its oblig­a­tions under inter­na­tional human rights law.