Tibetan Activist Dhondup Wangchen to testify before United States Congress, during first visit to Washington DC
Tibetan video activist Dhondup Wangchen is visiting Washington, D.C. from February 9 to 15, 2018 to testify at a Hearing organized by the Congressional Executive Commission on China and will meet Congressional and Administration officials. The Hearing will take place on Wednesday, February 14 from 10am to 12pm in 301 Russell Senate Office Building. In addition to calling on the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he will also meet with Washington based NGOs as well as the Tibetan community.
Detained by Chinese authorities in Tibet in March 2008 for making the documentary film “Leaving Fear Behind” (in which ordinary Tibetans expressed their feelings about their situation in the light of the Beijing Olympics), Dhondup Wangchen was sentenced to six years in prison for “inciting subversion”. His friend and assistant, Tibetan monk Golok Jigme, suffered from detention and torture, too. Dhondup was released at the end of his sentence in 2014, but continued to be deprived of his freedom.
After an arduous and risky escape from Tibet and China, he arrived in the United States on December 25, 2017, to be united with his wife and children in San Francisco, who escaped from Tibet before his arrest in 2008 and reached the United States in 2012.
Dhondup Wangchen became a face of 2008 and his courageous non-violent work earned recognition and support throughout the world, among civil society, parliaments and governments. Dhondup’s case was a priority for the United States government, and it has now been almost 10 years since he was first arrested. During his visit to Washington, D.C., he will be personally thanking many of the key actors who called on the Chinese authorities to end his unjust detention.
The International Campaign for Tibet and Zurich-based Filming for Tibet (which released the documentary “Leaving Fear Behind”) are organizing Dhondup Wangchen’s Washington, D.C. visit. For more information on the two organizations, visit www.filmingfortibet.org/ and www.savetibet.org.