By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, June 27: The Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has urged the Chinese authorities to release Gendun Dakpa and Lobsang Sherab who were ‘arbitrarily detained’ and sentenced earlier this month for alleged ‘inciting separatism’ and ‘sharing information with outsiders’.
“We call on the Chinese authorities to overturn the unfair sentences on the two monks and release them immediately and unconditionally. The monks were subjected to arbitrary detention and unfair trial that contravenes international human rights principles,” said TCHRD in its statement.
The Trochu County People’s Court on June 17 sentenced Gendun Dakpa (40) and Lobsang Sherab (36), both from Thangkor Socktsang Monastery in Sichuan’s Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, to five years and four years respectively.
Before the sentencing, the monks were kept under incommunicado detention for over a year since their arrest in August last year.
“The monks were denied the right to legal representation and barred from speaking during the trial. Their family members were not allowed to witness the trial and observers at the trial were kept under tight watch and scrutiny,” said the rights organization while calling for their immediate release.
Since torture is commonly practiced in almost every prisons in Tibet, the organization fearing for their health said, “Chinese authorities must provide immediate and proper medical assistance to the monks and ensure their physical and psychological integrity.”
The Chinese armed state security officers arrested the monks last year on 24 August at gunpoint for their alleged sharing information to outsiders about the peaceful protest staged by Tibetan nomads against the government land seizures in Ka Bharma village in Thangkor Town.
The Chinese authorities forcefully evicted around 20 families from their land and nomadic grazing tracts in the region in 2010. Houses were demolished under the pretext of an environmental initiative to ‘turn the town green’ by the Chinese authorities. Relocated families are still yet to receive the assured compensation even today.
