DHARAMSHALA, MARCH 29: A young Tibetan writer and university student, Tashi Rabten (pen-name Theu rang), has been released from prison on Saturday. He was held at Mianyang prison in Sichuan, and is expected to arrive at his native village in Zoege on Sunday.
Tashi was the editor of the banned literary magazine the Shar Dungri (Eastern Snow Mountain) on the 2008 protests in Tibet.
A student of Northwest Minorities University in Lanzhou, Tashi went missing on July 26, 2009, when the university closed for summer vacation. His whereabouts remained unknown until April 6, 2010 when he was traced to a detention center in Barkham (Chin: Ma’erkang) county, Ngaba (Chin: Aba) TAP.
The Ngaba Intermediate People’s Court on June 2, 2011, in a trial closed to Tashi’s family and friends, sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment on charges of “inciting activities to split the nation”.
Tashi’s book, ’Trag yig’ (Written in Blood), copies of which were later confiscated by government officials, had won him great respect and popularity’ amongst intellectuals and ordinary readers.
Meanwhile, another Tibetan named Dhondup Gyatso from Tibet’s Sangchu County, has also been released from a Chinese prison in Lanzhou on Friday, a Tibetan source told the Tibet Times. Gyatso was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment on charges of “inciting activities to split the nation”. He edited a journal called ‘la sog’ (lifeline) which was accused of containing politically banned contents.
