On the morning of April 23, a half-dozen police entered the office of influential Tibetan writer Shogdung, searched his personal possessions and took him away. His wife was told he had been detained on state security charges, but was not told where he is being held. He has not been seen since.
The arrest of the editor, who worked for the state-run Qinghai Nationalities Publishing House in the provincial capital, Xining , was the latest in a crackdown against Tibetan writers, artists, singers, bloggers and intellectuals, who have got into trouble for expressing views, or simply sharing information about central government policies and their impact on Tibet.
Their story has been compiled in a report released yesterday by the International Campaign for Tibet, entitled 'A 'Raging Storm': The Crackdown on Tibetan Writers and Artists after Tibet's Spring 2008 Protests'.
The report includes details of the cases of more than 50 Tibetans, including 13 writers, involved in the arts and public sphere who are either in prison, have disappeared or faced torture or harassment after expressing their views.
The ICT said the crackdown had only encouraged dissent, making it even more difficult to control.
'Despite, and because of, the severity of Beijing's response, dissent continues to be openly expressed, particularly through the written word,' said the report, which described unofficial writings about the protests in blogs, articles in one-off or unauthorised literary magazines, in books published and distributed privately, and also in the lyrics of songs sung in public places, uploaded onto YouTube or as cellphone ring tones.