FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - OCTOBER 23, 1996

For Further Information:

Sidney Jones (New York) (212) 972-8400 ex.290

Mickey Spiegel (New York) (212) 972-8400 ex.291

Mike Jendrzejczyk (Washington) (202) 371-6592 ex.113

RIGHTS GROUP CONDEMNS ARREST OF TIBETAN

FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR IN LHASA

Human Rights Watch/Asia today condemned the formal arrest by Chinese authorities of Ngawang Choephel, a thirty-year-old Tibetan Fulbright scholar and ethnomusicologist teaching at Middlebury College in Vermont. Choephel, who disappeared suddenly after traveling to Tibet in August 1995, is suspected of gathering "sensitive intelligence" and engaging in "illegal separatist activities" at the instigation of the "Dalai Lama's `government in exile.'" He has apparently been accused of violating Article 4, Section 2 (5) of the National Security Law, according to a letter from the Chinese embassy in Washington, which also accuses unnamed Americans of funding his activities.

Ngawang Choephel is the third major political arrest or indictment confirmed by Chinese authorities in the last month. In October, Wang Dan, a student leader during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, was formally indicted on subversion charges that carry a minimum ten-year sentence; he had disappeared for more than a year after having been taken into custody in May 1995. Liu Xiaobo, another Tiananmen Square activist, received a three-year labor re-education sentence one day after he was detained in early October for co-authoring a statement calling for press freedom and the impeachment of Jiang Zemin.

"It's almost as if the Chinese authorities were deliberately thumbing their nose at the United States," said Sidney Jones, executive director of Human Rights Watch/Asia. "First they arrest Liu Xiaobo and indict Wang Dan within weeks of a meeting between Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen.

Then Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord goes to China and raises human rights cases. As soon as he's gone, the Chinese government accuses a Fulbright scholar from an American college of espionage. When Christopher goes to Beijing next month, is he going to do more than express polite concern?"

Ngawang Choephel, who made his home in Dharamsala, India, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, and was a member there of the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. He was detained in Shigatse, Tibet some time between August 22 and September 16, 1995 after going there to make an amateur documentary film about traditional Tibetan music. His whereabouts would never have been known except for the fact that a fellow prisoner, later released, spotted him in Nyari prison in Shigatse. He has since been transferred to Lhasa, but his exact place of detention in unknown.

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Human Rights Watch/Asia Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization established in 1978 to monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized human rights. Kenneth Roth is the executive director; Cynthia Brown is the program director. Robert L. Bernstein is the chair of the board and Adrian W. DeWind is vice chair. Its Asia division was established in 1985 to monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized human rights in Asia. Sidney Jones is the executive director; Mike Jendrzejczyk is the Washington director. Andrew J. Nathan is chair of the advisory committee and Orville Schell is vice chair.