Digital Security and #Tibet
Gonpo Thinley was arrested at the age of nineteen for participating in the 2008 protests and served two and a half years in prison, where he was tortured and forced to perform hard labor. After his release, he escaped to Dharamsala. Many exiles communicate with their families back home in Tibet over the popular messaging app WeChat but because Thinley is still politically active, the risk is too great.
The rise of mobile technology and social media has opened up a new front in the struggle for Tibetan independence. Tibetans inside Tibet finally have access to information and can communicate easily with their loved ones who've fled, and it's hard to overstate the impact. Of course, this ubiquity of information means that surveillance from the Chinese government is at an all-time high as well — but that's never stopped this diaspora community from protesting and organizing before and it's not stopping them now.
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