(TIN News Update / 13 February, 1997 / pages: 2 ISSN 1355-3313)

London, 13 Feb - TIN : The exile Tibetan musician and former Fulbright scholar sentenced in December to 18 years in prison for espionage in Tibet is appealing against his conviction, according to a Chinese press report.

"Ngawang Choephel appealed the sentence to a higher court and the second hearing is going on," reported Xinhua, the official Chinese press agency, in a statement issued in English on 5th February.

The agency cited Tian Dan, deputy secretary general of the China Society for the Study of Human Rights, as the source for the information.

People convicted in China of a criminal offence are allowed ten days to apply to a higher court for an appeal against their conviction, but there are no known cases of any appeals being successful in Tibet.

Mr Tian was referring to the case of Ngawang Choephel as an example of "groundless accusations and intentional fabrications" which he said filled the US Government's annual report on human rights in Tibet and China, released on 30th January.

Tian repeated a government statement issued on 26th December which said that Ngawang Choephel had been "sent by the Dalai Lama clique in July of 1995 to gather information in Tibet under the guise of making a documentary about Tibetan performing arts". Tian also repeated the allegation that the music scholar was travelling "with equipment and funding provided by a certain country", apparently a reference to the United States.

"Criminals like Ngawang Choephel, who endanger state security and engage in espionage, would be punished in accordance with the law in any country with a sound legal system", Tian told a seminar of Chinese scholars in Beijing held on 5th February to condemn the US State Department report.

Scholars at the seminar said that the evidence used in the US report was "malicious and slanderous" and was based on "Western media reports, the statements of overseas "democratic movement activists", and on distortions of speeches of Chinese officials", according to Xinhua.

The Tibetan musician was a spy not a film-maker, said the scholars, but they did not list any other errors of fact in the US report except to say that the Chinese dissident Wang Dan had been sentenced because he had "conspired to subvert the government" and not because he had been investigating human rights.

In fact the US report had only described Mr Choephel's conviction in one sentence which cited the Chinese claim without commenting on or questioning the verdict. In a separate statement on 11th January the US Government said it had "no information that Ngawang Choephel was doing anything other than pursuing his professional interests in music and dance" but did not explicitly call for his release.

The Xinhua statement hinted at a technical dispute over the musician's status, apparently because the US report had listed the case in a section dealing with foreigners in Tibet. The musician, brought up since the age of 2 in exile in India, is a stateless refugee, but, like all Tibetan refugees, he had to sign a document in effect accepting Chinese citizenship in order to get permission to visit Tibet.

Tian gave no new information about the reasons for the conviction of the musician, merely repeating the earlier official report, which had announced the 18 year sentence and which had said that the former Fulbright scholar had "confessed to his wrongdoing". China has still not given any indication as to what secret information Ngawang Choephel was supposed to have been collecting. "Making up a story" and "distorting facts" are both listed in China's State Security laws as "sabotage activities", making them crimes of espionage, and under laws defining "state secrets" revealing the names of anyone in prison is also a crime.

The Chinese have said only that an itinerary was found on the musician which it describes as an "outline for intelligence gathering" and that he was caught in "an attempt to provide information" to the exiles and to a foreign organisation, suggesting that he has been convicted for attempted rather than actual espionage.

China has this year increased its criticisms of US comments on its human rights records, issuing separate attacks by name on Human Rights Watch (17th January), the New York Times (5th February) and a US paper called the Philadelphia Enquirer (6th February).

The imprisonment of Ngawang Choephel appears to be part of a major drive by the Chinese authorities against exile pro-independence activists in Tibet. Last year court and legal officials in Tibet "gave first priority to the anti-splittism struggle in the midst of the Strike Hard struggle" and this year have been told that they "must conscientiously take on the political responsibility of waging the anti-splittism struggle and preserving stability", according to a Tibet Daily article on 16th January, translated by the BBC Monitoring Service.

"We must wage a tit-for-tat struggle against infiltration and sabotage and completely crush the Dalai clique's splittist plot," said Tsultrim, secretary of the Tibet region's procuratorial and judicial commission, according to the paper.

The UN announced on Tuesday that its High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose Ayala Lasso, has accepted an invitation from the Chinese government to visit China. The visit is expected to take place before the annual session of the UN Commission on Human Rights begins on 10th March and has been criticised by the US-based organisation, Human Rights Watch, which yesterday called on the visit to be delayed until after the Commission and requested Mr Ayala Lasso to call for the release of all political prisoners in China and Tibet.