(TibetanReview.net, Oct13’22) – In a bare-knuckled interpretation of President Xi Jinping call for the Sinicization of Tibet, a Chinese woman has made a social media posting on Oct 8 in which she has called for the extermination of Tibetans in their capital Lhasa. City police have since identified and detained the woman, but only for “undermining national unity” by making “inappropriate remarks” after her call went viral in the city on social media. Her subsequent supposed apology has made no mention of Tibetans.
The woman—named Liu according to the Lhasa City Public Security Bureau—made a racist post on WeChat that called for wiping out Tibetans in Lhasa and for Chinese to take over the city, said Washington-bed International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) on its savetibet.org website Oct 11.
Dismissing a complaint shared by a person about the Lhasa government’s Covid-19 strategy, the woman was stated to have commented:
“The government doesn’t care? Hey! All the Tibetans in Lhasa should be wiped out! All Tibetans should be wiped out — leaving us Han Chinese to occupy this place!”
Outraged Tibetans posted objections to her racist, ethnic cleansing-call remarks, and urged authorities to take stern action.
On the following day, the city Chinese police were stated to have identified the woman as someone surnamed Liu in a public notice, which said:
“On Oct 8, 2022, some netizens in our city posted inappropriate remarks that undermined national unity on social networking platforms and were reposted. After our bureau filed a case for investigation, the publisher of the remarks was Liu XX. At present, our bureau has carried out investigation and evidence collection and will pursue its legal responsibilities in accordance with the law.”
ICT Continued that in a subsequent, carefully orchestrated, “apology”, the woman offered only a general statement of regret, with no mention whatsoever of the Tibetans she had called to be wiped out. In a video message with her face blurred, the woman, wearing her black hair down on a checkered flannel shirt and black jacket, was quoted as saying:
“At 3:00 pm on Oct 8, 2022, (I) posted something unfavourable to the nation (unity) in the (WeChat) group, which had a huge impact on the society. Here, I would like to express my deepest apologies to the government and the general public. I won’t do anything like this again in the future. I am sorry.”
It remains to be seen how the case proceeds further; whether at all it will reach a judicial trial; and, if so, what she will be charged with, and how she will be punished. China apparently does not have anything like a law against racism and racial discrimination as the state itself is institutionally steeped in such practices especially against its so-called ethnic minorities.
This has seen so many Tibetan people being arrested, tortured, beaten to death or otherwise tried and jailed for alleged separatism and given lengthy sentences for merely seeking respect for their ethnic and cultural identity.