By Phuntsok Yangchen
DHARAMSHALA August 11: China has freed a Tibetan environmentalist a year before the end of his five-year sentence on Friday. Rinchen Samdrup, who ran environmental NGO in mountainous Gonjo County, was jailed and sentenced in 2010 for “inciting to split the country”.
Rinchen had allegedly posted an article supportive of the views of the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama on his website.
Samdrup was sentenced to five years in prison and three years’ deprivation of political rights.
Exile Tibetans and supporters say Rinchen has been framed on false charges of “illegally compiling three discs of audio-visual materials on the ecology, environment, natural resources and religion of Chamdo Prefecture, illegally possessing reactionary propaganda materials from the Dalai clique abroad and supplying photographs and material for the illegal publication Forbidden Mountain, Prohibited Hunting.”
Rinchen’s NGO had mobilized about 1,700 villagers into reforestation drive and anti – poaching. Rinchen Samdrup was praised in an article published on China’s ministry of environment website for being a “protector of the environment” who “exudes the pure tranquility of an intellectual.”
He also received an award from the Ford Motor Company Conservation and Environment Protection Grants (China) in 2006 as well as an award from Jet Li’s One World Foundation.
His two brothers Karma Samdrup, a wealthy businessman and an environmentalist, and Chime Namgyal, also an environmentalist, were arrested a months before him. While Karma Samdrup was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of ‘grave robbing’, Chime Namgyal was released two years later.
Another Tibetan political prisoner, Jangchup Gyaltsen, has also been released from a prison in Gepasumdo region, Tongde County, Qinghai on July 28. He had served his two year sentence. Jangchub, a monk of Ba Shetri monastery, was received with ceremonial scarves by fellow monks of his monastery.
Gyaltsen was arrested along with 60 other Tibetans for their involvement in a protest by Tibetans against China’s hardline policy. However, many of them were later released.
