By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, Sept 20: Two Tibetan monks have reportedly been sentenced to imprisonment for sharing images and information over the Internet about a Tibetan woman who self immolated in May 2015.
Jinpa Gyatso, 39 and Kelsang Monlam, 37, were both sentenced to a year and a half on Sept. 12 by the Sangchu County People’s Court in Sangchu County in Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province according to rights group Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.
Both the monks who belong to the college of Buddhist Dialectics at Labrang Tashikyil Monastery were arbitrarily detained separately on June 4, 2015 and held over a year with their families having no information about them. They are being held at Menkar Prison in Sangchu County.
A source cited by TCHRD regarded Jinpa Gyatso as being a bright scholar who graduated with honors from the ‘Nangten Lobda’ Buddhist Academy in Gansu Province. Later in 1998, he joined the Labrang Monastery where too he excelled in his studies before being arrested.
His fellow monk Kelsang Monlam was born in 1980 in Nyinpa Village in Chebishi Township, Chone County, Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
Dharamshala based TCHRD reports that with the arrest of Jinpa Gyatso and Kelsang Monlam, the total number of people arrested in connection withthe self immolation of Sangyal Tso who set herself ablaze on May 27, 2015 in Dokhog Township in Chone County, has reached eight Tibetans, six of whom were detained earlier.
As of now, the conditions and whereabouts of the six Tibetans remain unknown.
