Former prominent political prisoner Tashi Wangchuk was beaten and detained by Chinese police earlier this month after he posted a video showing government officials denying him a license for his new business.
According to a report by Tibet Watch, Wangchuk opened a car wash in Yushu on 17 October and, on the instructions of the local police, visited the local municipality on the same day to apply for a license for his new business. His application was rejected, which he filmed on his cell phone and posted as a video on his WeChat account.
He was later arrested and handed over to the Yushu City Public Security Bureau (PSB), where he was detained and interrogated for three days and told that he had committed a crime against the state by posting the video on his WeChat. He was also brutally beaten and mistreated by high-ranking officials, and his car wash was also forcibly closed, Tibet Watch said.
Wangchuk, a language activist and shopkeeper, was detained in January 2016 following the release of a New York Times video that detailed his attempts to petition for the rights of Tibetans to speak and learn their own language at school. In January 2018, he was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of “inciting separatism”. Even after his release in 2021, he has continued to face harassment and repercussions for his peaceful activism. Last month, he was notably attacked by masked men after posting a video of himself at a Tibetan school.