Yanjindulam (also known as Naranhuaar), a prominent activist, dissident, and herders’ leader from Southern Mongolia’s Shiliingol League, was released from prison yesterday after serving a three-year sentence. Arrested on August 31, 2020, Yanjindulam was accused of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble” and “collaborating with foreign hostile forces.” 

Public Security personnel from her hometown Shiliingol League picked her up from prison in Southern Mongolia’s Tongliao City and brought her home. Except for her husband, friends and supporters are not allowed to meet or communicate with her. 

“As expected, she remains resolute and is in high spirits despite the hardship in prison,” a friend of hers who asked not to be identified told the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center. “This means the authorities will continue to keep her under tight surveillance, preventing her from engaging in any activism.”

On August 31, 2020, moments before her arrest, Yanjindulam managed to initiate a video call with the SMHRIC and expressed her excitement about the ongoing mass protest staged by Mongolians across Southern Mongolia against China’s newly implemented “Second Generation Bilingual Education” program.

“I have been ordered by the local Public Security not to leave my home during this protest. But I have never been more hopeful about our future and our people,” Yanjindulam told the SMHRIC over a frequently disrupted video call. “This is how we are supposed to respond to this regime.” Those were the last words heard from Yanjindulam prior to her incarceration. 

As a prominent leader of the Southern Mongolian herders, Yanjindulam has organized and coordinated numerous protests and petitions to promote and protect the rights of herders across Southern Mongolia for more than a decade. 

Despite around-the-clock surveillance, Yandjindulam traveled across the region to meet with herders’ leaders and rallied the local communities to defend their legal rights. As an outspoken critic of Chinese government policy in Southern Mongolia, Yanjindulam has also been active on social media, including WeChat, to publicly criticize China’s violation of the rights of the Mongolian people and the suppression of dissents in Southern Mongolia. As a result, she has been frequently arrested, detained, and placed under house arrest. 

On February 1, 2020, Yanjindulam sent three video statements to the “Conference on Hada and Southern Mongolian National Liberation Movement” organized by the SMHRIC in the United States. 

In one of the video statements, Yanjindulam said, “This video is intended for the purpose of appealing to the international community for the protection of human rights of the Southern Mongolians. Today, in Southern Mongolia, Mongolians do not have any human rights. The reason why I say this is that the Mongolians in Southern Mongolia do not even have the most basic rights to their land, territory, indigenous culture, and way of life.”

Predicting possible persecution from the Chinese authorities, Yanjindulam made it clear in the video statement that “If I am arrested or even killed, here I state that there will not be any other reason but because of my open criticism [of the Chinese Government].”

The imprisonment of Yandjindulam is just the tip of iceberg. Since the large-scale protest against China’s renewed attack on Mongolian language in 2020, an estimated 10,000 Southern Mongolians have been either arrested, detained, imprisoned, or placed under house arrest in protest of what the  Mongolians widely call “cultural genocide” by the Chinese authorities.

 

Video statements received from Yanjindulam ( English subtitle by SMHRIC - 20200201 ):