DHARAMSHALA, December 3: The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, the only right group run by Tibetans themselves monitoring human rights situation in Tibet, has reported that 9 Tibetans have been sentenced to varying prison terms in the restive Driru region in Nagchu on Nov. 30.
In a press release issued today, the centre said only 3 men have been identified amid strict monitoring by local Chinese authorities of information and human movement in the county.
28 year old Kunchok Choephel of Ngayang village, Tsachu township, was arrested on November 23 this year and has been sentenced to 6 years’ imprisonment. Kunchok has been convicted for sending out information about the recent protests in Driru to outside “separatist forces” headed by the Dalai Lama whom China reviles as “a monk in a wolf’s robe”.
Tenzin Rangdol, 34, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison for getting in contact with “separatist forces” led by the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama. A father of 3, Rangdol was nabbed while on his way to drop his kids to school. He lives with his wife Palzom in village no. 4, Shagchu township in Driru.
Topden, a 30 year old nomad and writer who writes under the pseudonym Dro Ghang Gah, has been sentenced to five years in prison for “keeping contacts with Dalai clique and for engaging in activities to split the nation”. He lives in Village No. 4 of Shagchu township with his wife, Dakar, and three children.
The identities of six others sentenced are not immediately known due to extreme government censorship and surveillance in Diru and neighbouring counties in Nagchu Prefecture, said Tsering Tsomo, who heads the centre.
Sources also said that the county law enforcement authorities have released a list of Tibetans who have studied outside Nagchu prefecture to be called for the Thought Education Campaign. The Tibetans who had been released since September will also be subjected to the Thought Education Campaign.
