Beijing: Despite repeated digital crackdowns by the Chinese authorities, the internet remained for years one of the few spaces where Mongolians from China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region or Southern Mongolia could freely use their language, share music and literature, and connect with one another, a report highlighted on Friday.
Citing a report by PEN America and the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre, it stated that the Chinese government is suppressing Mongolian language and culture in certain online spaces, systematically breaking apart key digital communities where Mongolian identity thrived.
“According to the study, entitled ‘Save Our Mother Tongue’, nearly 89 per cent of known Mongolian cultural websites have since been censored or shut down entirely. Online communities have also been restricted, including the most widely used Mongolian-language social media app, Bainu. The report also further uncovered a policy known as ‘One Province, One Newspaper, One Client’, which allows state media outlets to launch their own apps, effectively crowding out independent platforms created by Mongolian developers,” a report in ‘Genocide Watch’ detailed.
Soyonbo Borjgin, a Southern Mongolian journalist now living in exile in New York, saw the Chinese government close the newspaper ‘The Inner Mongolia Daily’ for which he worked, and was sent to a re-education class for one month. He now writes to shed light on what he described as “systematic cultural repression”.
“Since the government has banned Mongolian in local schools, the digital space has become the last free public space for the Mongolian people. It means the Chinese government is deliberately removing spaces where Mongolians can use their own language, share music, discuss history, and connect as a community. Mongolian songs are being removed from music apps. Songs like ‘Let Us Be Mongolian’ and ‘I Am a Mongolian’ have been erased,” the report quoted Borjgin as saying while speaking to Tech24.
“Right now, in the region where I come from, people cannot use Mongolian to discuss any topic. The entire cyberspace for the Mongolian language has disappeared,” he added.
Advocacy group PEN America and the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre are now calling for coordinated action from tech companies, governments and international institutions to safeguard Mongolian culture online in the region.
“We want to see them (tech and social media companies) adopt a cultural rights framework in platform development, uphold their responsibility to respect human rights, and partner with independent organisations to provide digital support – particularly for impacted Mongolian communities,” the report quoted Liesl Gerntholtz, Managing Director of PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Centre at PEN America, as saying.
(IANS)
