Jan 12, 2023

Over 100 Global Rights Groups Call for the Immediate Release of Mongolian writer and activist Munkhbayar Chuluundorj


 Human rights groups have today called on the Mongolian government to immediately release human rights defender Munkhbayar Chuluundorj who is serving a 10-year prison sentence on politically motivated charges related to his public criticism of the Mongolian government’s close ties with China.(1) [Full statement text and list of signatories can be seen below] 

We urge the Mongolian government to immediately release Mr. Munkhbayar Chuluundorj who was arbitrarily arrested in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, by the General Intelligence Agency (GIA) of Mongolia on February 17, 2022. 

Mr. Munkhbayar Chuluundorj is an award-winning Mongolian journalist, poet, and human rights activist known for defending the linguistic, cultural, and historical identities of Southern Mongolians. 

Mr. Munkhbayar Chuluundorj was detained in Ulaanbaatar on politically motivated charges related to his public criticism of the Mongolian government’s close ties with China (1) and the shrinking rights in Southern Mongolia [CH: Inner Mongolia], which China has occupied since 1949. His arrest and sentencing took place amid China’s increasingly severe policies in Southern Mongolia that aim to remove learning in the Mongolian language for several key subjects. These restrictive policies are similar to those rolled out by Chinese authorities in Tibet and East Turkistan [CH: Xinjiang], and recent moves to replace Cantonese education in Hong Kong with Mandarin.

Mr. Munkhbayar Chuluundorj was sentenced to 10 years in prison on June 28, 2022, for “collaborating with a foreign intelligence agency” against the People’s Republic of China. On December 21, 2022, the Supreme Court of Mongolia heard his appeal and upheld the lower court’s original decision. There is no evidence linking Mr. Munkhbayar Chuluundorj to the charge and his lawyer, Ms. Baasan Geleg, has dismissed the national security charge against him as entirely baseless. 

In September 2022 two handwritten letters from Mr. Munkhbayar Chuluundorj - penned in the detention center in June 2022 - were received by the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center. In the letters, he pleaded his innocence and detailed how he believed the evidence against him had been fabricated in relation to his work to better the conditions of Mongolians.

Land-locked Mongolia is highly dependent on China for imports and there has been an increase in economic influence, including vast loans via Xi Jinping’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, in recent years that have pushed Mongolia into major indebtedness to China. These debts are further exacerbated by a program of cultural propaganda such as the establishment of Confucius Institutes, television and radio broadcasts, and cultural centers. 

Growing concern about the Mongolian state’s harassment, intimidation, and reprisals against human rights defenders is growing. In October 2022, the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights raised the issue of human rights defenders and recommended Mongolia put in place protection safeguards and ‘urgently investigate cases in which human rights defenders are criminalized’. Later in the same month, the Japanese “Parliamentary Support Group for Southern Mongolia” published a statement regarding the sentence of Mr. Munkhbayar Chuluundorj.

Rights groups are calling on like-minded governments - both jointly and bi-laterally - and the UN Human Rights Council to call for the immediate release of Mr. Munkhbayar Chuluundorj.