Translated by Tashi Namgyal
The Chinese government has shut down a Tibetan-language blog, Luktsang Palyon, on alleged matters of copyrights. Over many years, compositions of Tibetan writers in Tibet and outside have been published through this online platform.
As China has intensified crackdowns on Tibetan-language websites, blogs and apps in Tibet over the past years, the Luktsang blog has been shut down recently and even erased all the write ups from the site.
Over this matter, a Tibetan related to this blog said, “The authority of Wechat group has blocked our website, there would be less hope to reopen it even if we do appeal. We are sincerely grateful for those writers and readers who have been supporting Luktsang Palyon over those years. Thank you all.”
The owner of the Luktsang blog issued a notification on 2 April 2024 and stated, “on 2 April 2024, the authority of Wechat group has blocked all contents of Luktsang Wechat blog which consists of over ten thousand write ups. In the past, we were warned once by the Wechat group as we published some write ups having issues with copyrights. Later we considered that we have violated the copyright policies since we can’t change what the authority of Wechat group has already finalized. In order to persist with our significant work, we have appealed formally to the concerned authority through an application to restore our Wechat blog. If we could restore the blog, we would respect the copyrights of every write up. If there would be no possible way to restore it, thinking of all other remarkable Tibetan websites and blogs, we will accept the decision of the concerned authorities. For that, we hope that our readers and writers also can consider the situation and cope with it.
It is further added in the notification, “We can understand the value between new write ups and the copyright because we always have respect for the new write ups and copy rights. Thus, we all including those who join our online platform have responsibilities to value the new write ups and the copyrights. We would like to thank all those who have supported us all the time and gave us a chance to debate virtually about Tibetan language and culture over 11 years and 25 days from 9 March 2013 to 2 April 2024.”
Luktsang Palyon as a website was launched in 2013 and later turned into a Wechat blog where various compositions of Tibetan writers in Tibet and outside have been published. This blog also consists of other Tibetan cultural contents such as Tibetan songs and translation columns. Following the immediate block of the Luktsang blog, numerous readers who love the Tibetan language are facing great concerns.
