Tibetan poet sues China for passport

Woeser has been waiting 1,151 days for a passport. As one of Tibet's most famous poets, she has never shied away from voicing her criticism of the Chinese government even though she is resident in Beijing. Now she is taking her protest one step further and is suing the authorities to get the document.

"For so long now, many Tibetan people have met difficulties applying for a passport. Some people will walk for a long time, climbing snow-capped mountains to arrive in Nepal to get their right as a citizen," she said yesterday.

"In China, no matter whether you are from Beijing or Changchun, it is always very easy and convenient to apply for a passport. The procedure is quite simple. Within 15 days of their application, they will get a passport. But such an easy procedure is quite unbelievable for a Tibetan.

"For the past three years, I made many phone calls to ask why [I have heard nothing]. But the government did not give me any clear answer. They just did all they could to delay me," she said. Woeser believes that her request has a slim chance of being accepted, but she is totally convinced it needs to be made. The world's attention is firmly focused on China, with the Olympic Games just two weeks away.

And she believes her lawsuit is another way of ensuring the world does not forget about a Chinese clampdown she believes has worsened since the riots that erupted in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in March. The clampdown has been one of the focal points for anti-Chinese sentiment around the world. Beijing says the riots took 22 lives, but foreign activists claim the riots killed many times that number.

Woeser is a famous figure in Beijing and the best known blogger on Tibetan subjects in China. She is 42 years old, slight, and very courageous. Her books are banned in China, and security agents watch her apartment. Her blogs get shut down and she must come up with new addresses to dodge the authorities.

She has worked tirelessly for the issues that affect Tibetans, and writes a blog on controversial subjects such as Aids, prostitution, the destruction of the fragile Tibetan environment and the new railway that has become a focus for anti-Chinese sentiment. As one China watcher put it, she is the "poet who forgot to be afraid".

Woeser is more modest. "I am a writer. I write articles and books. Maybe the government does not like my words and is not satisfied with what I'm saying," is how she describes what others have called "risks that are off the chart".

She may now be one of the most strident voices of dissent today, but her childhood was altogether more conventional. Her parents were loyal communists, and her half-Chinese, half-Tibetan father was a deputy commander in Tibet for the People's Liberation Army. Woeser was born in 1966 – the start of the Cultural Revolution – and growing up in Lhasa, she remembers being devoted to Chairman Mao. When she left to go to high school, and later university, in neighbouring Sichuan province, the torrent of doubts and questions began.

Since registering her petition with the Changchun Intermediate People's Court, she has not heard a peep. She does not even know if her case will be heard. But she remains determined. "I have got every reason to do this. Laws give every citizen the right to apply for a passport, and to sue if they suffer something unfair."