2014-07-09
Woeser in an undated photo.
AFP
As U.S. and Chinese officials began a high-profile round of annual talks in Beijing on Wednesday, Tibetan poet and writer Tsering Woeser was once more placed under house arrest at her Beijing home.
She said the move came after she posted on Twitter and Facebook that she had received an invitation from U.S. officials.
“I was put under guard, probably because I wrote on Twitter and Facebook that I had a call from the U.S. Embassy,” Woeser told RFA on the eve of the sixth round of annual strategic bilateral talks.
“The U.S. Embassy called me to invite me to a meeting and a banquet,” she said.
Woeser “has emerged as the most prominent mainland activist speaking out publicly about human rights conditions” for Tibetans, the U.S. State Department said in a statement after she won its “Woman of Courage” award in 2013.
Her website Invisible Tibet, together with her poetry and nonfiction and writings on social media have given a voice to millions of Tibetans “who are prevented from expressing themselves to the outside world due to government efforts to curtail the flow of information,” the State Department said.
Woeser was prevented from leaving China to collect the award in person.
The U.S. delegation to the bilateral talks in Beijing is led by Secretary of State John Kerry.
