Images: archivenet

According to Radio Free Asia (RFA) Editors, Roseanne Girin and Malcom Foster, there are within the Chinese province of Sichuan, so-called ‘Tibetan populated areas’. Such descriptions have long been featured by RFA and challenged by @tibettruth on numerous occasions. Including: https://tibettruth.com/2023/06/01/state-department-asset-spreading-chinas-lies-on-tibet/

Where does RFA get its information from you may wonder? Well it’s sources are courageous Tibetans from inside occupied Tibet; who manage, at considerable risk, to get information out to exiled Tibetan related organizations; including the Central Tibetan Administration. This then is provided to, and translated by, Tibetan staff within RFA Washington HQ. With a final editing into English by staff such as Ms Girin and Mr Foster.

Tibetans have not written in their testimony and evidence ‘Tibetan populated areas’, ‘China’s Tibetan areas’ , ‘ethnic Tibetans’ nor would they choose Chinese place-names for clearly Tibetan locations. That misleading and factually flawed rendering is down to the editorial policy of RFA, implemented by its non-Tibetan editors.

Take Girin’s and Foster’s May 8th report: It could and should have read ‘Tibetans children in Kham region of occupied Tibet being forced to speak only Chinese’. To do so of course would not be in accord with the somewhat appeasing foreign policy position of the US State Department; which is acutely nervous about offending China’s sensitivities on Tibet. In accommodation it, and RFA, peddle reports which consistently mimic Chinese regime descriptions of Tibetan place-names and territories. As a consequence anyone reading RFA output on Tibet is being fed the propaganda that Tibet is part of China.

This is a clear bias and distortion, a politicized misrepresentation in which the State Department and Radio Free Asia are complicit. As such both organizations are legitimate targets for protest by Tibetans, who can rightly demand that reportage on Tibet should be free from Chinese Regime propaganda. Let’s hope such an action is decided upon, as the distortions and untruths which undermine, otherwise valuable coverage on Tibet, need to stop!

This post was originally published on Digital Activism In Support Of Tibetan Independence.