DHARAMSHALA, May 1: Lobsang Tenzin, one of Tibet’s longest serving political prisoners has reportedly been released on medical parole and is currently undergoing treatment at home for severe injuries sustained during his quarter of a century prison term.
According to the Dharamshala based Tibetan language radio service, Voice of Tibet, Lobsang Tenzin was released in late 2012 by Chinese authorities on medical grounds. The move came just months before his expected release in April 2013.
In 2011, Lobsang Tenzin, while in Lhasa’s Chushul prison was described being in “critical health condition,” suffering from severe diabetes due to which his eyesight had weakened sharply causing blindness at times.
Lobsang Tenzin, in his mid-twenties, was a student at Lhasa’s Tibet University when he was arrested in 1988 for participating in popular anti-China protests in Lhasa that later led to the declaration of martial law in Tibet under the then Tibet party secretary, Hu Jintao.
He was initially sentenced to death but was later commuted to life imprisonment as a result of strong international pressure on China.
Even while in prison, Lobsang Tenzin, despite severe torture had continued his political activism.
In 1989, while he was still on death row, he wrote a letter supporting the pro-independence demonstrations in Tibet and together with three fellow prisoners and some non-prisoners co-founded a group called Snow Lion Youth for Tibetan independence.
When officials discovered the existence of the movement, the inmates were brutally beaten and subjected to solitary confinement for 34 days. Lobsang Tenzin was also put in shackles for 17 months and two of his prison-mates, Dawa and Migmar Tashi, who co-founded the pro-independence group, were executed in 1990 for allegedly planning to escape from prison.
After being released from solitary confinement in 1990, Lobsang Tenzin organised the first known mass protest in Drapchi prison demanding information about the cause of his fellow prisoner and activist Lhakpa Tsering’s death.
Later, in March 1991 when the then US ambassador to China, James Lilley visited Tibet, Lobsang Tenzin and another inmate Tenpa Wangdrak tried to hand over a petition letter to the ambassador containing the names of all political prisoners and their conditions in the prison. The attempt was caught by jail authorities which led to Lobsang Tenzin’s further torture and deterioration of health.
It is common practice for Chinese authorities to release seriously or terminally injured prisoners in order to reduce the number of deaths in detention.
In 2011, Norlha Ashagtsang, a Tibetan political prisoner succumbed to injuries sustained during prolonged torture sessions in Lhasa just weeks after his released on medical parole.
