DHARAMSHALA, APRIL 2 : The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy based here said Chinese prison authorities might have used “injections designed to cause and exacerbate” pain on a Tibetan prisoner who, the Tibetan right group said, died of injury caused by “torture in detention.”
Goshul Lobsang, released on parole allegedly for fear of death in custody, died at his home in Gyutsa Village in Bhelpan Township in Machu County on March 19.
“For about 5 months he was subjected to severe torture including pain-inducing injections, and deprived of sleep and food by the interrogation officers in Machu County,” said the TCHRD, citing a source from Lobsang’s village now living in exile.
TCHRD cited another source who said that officers used sharp-pointed objects such as toothpicks to repeatedly pierce and penetrate into the tops of his finger nails and cuticles resulting in severe bleeding, swelling and pain.
“The use of torture methods to increase pain is consistent with other Chinese torture tactics. For example, the Chinese adopted Soviet torture techniques to inflict pain faster.”
The group alleges that the use of pain-inducing injections to facilitate and expedite torture on Gonshul Lobsang not only violates international law but also violates medical ethics. “The widespread and systematic torture in Chinese prisons cannot exist without the active and implied consent of medical professionals. The medical professionals working in Chinese prisons should use Golshul Lobsang’s death and the participation of medical professionals in his death as an opportunity to support medical ethics and oppose torture.”
Goshul Lobsang led a protest in 2008 against the Chinese authorities at Bhelpan Township. In January 2009, Goshul Lobsang and a few others shared on QQ leaflets calling on Tibetans not to celebrate ostentatious Losar (Tibetan New Year) and asking the local authorities to stop colluding with human traffickers, said the TCHRD. On 10 April 2009, the police officers beat up Goshul Lobsang and another Tibetan, Dakpa, after they confronted the authorities questioning their harassment of Tibetans after 2008 protests. “The severe beatings prompted around 400 local Tibetans to directly confront the police, with some locals raising protest slogans and throwing stones. As the matter escalated, the police had no choice but to temporarily let go of Goshul Lobsang and Dakpa,” said TCHRD.
On 12 April 2009, local authorities called a meeting of major village leaders in Bhelpan Township and served them an ultimatum to surrender the five ringleaders of the 2008 protests including Goshul Lobsang. It was around this time that Goshul Lobsang escaped into the mountains to evade arrest. For about a year he avoided arrest but finally got arrested on May 16, 2010. “For the next five to six months, he was detained by the police in Machu County, brutally beaten and tortured,” a Tibetan source said.
In December 2010, a Chinese court in Kanlho sentenced him to 12 years in prison. He was taken to a prison in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province. While in prison, his health deteriorated due to lack of medical care and starvation diet, according to the TCHRD, which added that he was released last year in an extremely poor physical condition. Family and friends of Lobsang were not surprised by his death given his health condition at the time of his release, a source said. “He was literally reduced to skin and bones. He could not walk. He could not eat or drink. He could not even utter a single word,” said the source.
TCHRD said it has also obtained a copy of a note reportedly written by Goshul Lobsang during his imprisonment at Ding Xi (定西) city in Gansu Province. In the note titled “Prisoner of Clear Conscience”, Goshul Lobsang challenges the official Chinese propaganda that Tibetan activists are criminals deserving to be imprisoned. Below is an English version translated by the TCHRD.
Prisoner of Clear Conscience
I have a family. I have siblings. I have a wife and children. For them, I have sincere love and affection, and for the sake of this love and affection, I am determined to sacrifice my life. But for the sake of our own people, even if I lose this love and affection, I will have no regrets. I am an ordinary nomad who loves his people, so I am willing to do anything for my people. I might lose this bony and haggard body that has suffered brutal pain and torture inflicted out of sheer hatred, I still will not have any regrets. I have the desire to follow in the footsteps of martyrs who expressed everything through flaming fire, but I lack courage [to do such a thing].
However, I don’t have the desire to bow my head in surrender to an environment, which denies freedom to speak out against lies and to struggle for equality. [Therefore], I fell into such a situation [of torture and suffering], for which I, an ordinary nomad, have no regrets. What I desire is a free world wherein people can enjoy a life of harmony – I don’t want an atmosphere of darkness, a society wherein life is subjected to oppression.
I have no regrets, although all of a sudden, I may be compelled to separate from the path of life that [I have been treading along] with my beloved mother, siblings, wife and children. I may have to depart with [feelings] of cold, heavy sadness, but I have no sense of guilt in my heart.
My clear conscience is my only asset in this world. I don’t possess anything other than this, and I don’t need anything other than this.
[But] my only regret that weighs heavily on my heart is the lack of profound sense of solidarity among our people, because of which we are unable to achieve a strong unified stand.
Fellow countrymen, we must have a far-sighted [political] vision and strong unity. We must have a strong sense of faith in our culture and tradition, and a sense of gratitude to those who have contributed so much to our nation.
Fellow countrymen of the Land of Snows, we must all uphold unity. May this unity be sustained for tens of thousands of years!
Goshul Lobsang
28 September 2012
Dingxi, Gansu
