By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, May 1: A Tibetan woman arrested in connection with a self immolation of a Tibetan monk has been released after her four year prison term ended in eastern Tibet’s Amdo region.
Tsedup Kyi was welcomed home by family members and around 200 other local Tibetans in Choejema Township in Ngaba (Ch:Aba) County in Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, after her release from Mianyang Prison, located near Chengdu city, rights group, Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported.
Kyi who has a 14 year old son was released earlier last month on April 5. Her arrest, according to TCHRD, was due to her connection with the self-immolation of Lobsang Gendun, a monk who died of self-immolation on 3 December 2012 in Pema (Ch: Baima) County, Qinghai Province.
“To save Gendun’s body from falling into the hands of Chinese authorities, Kyi and other Tibetans had engaged in a scuffle with local security forces during which Kyi held on to the charred body and shouted, ‘Freedom in Tibet!’ and ‘Return of Dalai Lama to Tibet!’,” the TCHRD said.
Due to the choke on information channels in the region, the news of her arrest did not reach outside Tibet like that of many Tibetan political prisoners in occupied Tibet.
The 32 year old had to spend the initial year of her four year sentence in the prison hospital for injuries she sustained during the pretrial duration when prisoners are subjected to torture and inhumane treatments by Chinese authorities. The treatment expenses amounting to 13,000 Yuan have been demanded to be paid back by the authorities, adding to Kyi’s woes.
Tsedup Kyi like many other Tibetans have been implicated and sentenced in connection to self immolation cases in Tibet where authorities have, by law, criminalized self immolation and punished family and friends of self immolators.
Till date, there have been 148 self immolations by Tibetans since 2009.
