Eight Tibetan monks who were arrested in April 2008 after allegedly staging a bomb attack on a government building in the Tibetan township of Gyanbe(1) on March 23, have been given lengthy prison sentences(2), according to a very reliable source in the region.

The monks are from the Thangkya monastery (Ch: Tongxia) in Gyanbe, a town approximately 850 miles east of Lhasa.

Free Tibet has learned that the eight monks, who are named below, were sentenced on 23 September by the Chamdo Prefecture People’s Court. The source has told Free Tibet that 11 Tibetans were arrested in total in April for allegedly being connected to the bomb attack but only eight were sentenced on September 23(3).

A report in the official People’s Daily on 14 April (4) stated that the Tibetans, who were arrested on suspicion of causing the blast, had all confessed to the alleged crime. But the source from the region contests this, arguing that the official Chinese version of events is not credible (5).

The legal proceedings against the monks have been shrouded in complete secrecy, according to the source. Normally relatives of the accused would be informed of the nature of the alleged charges, and also of the sentencing. It is also unusual that, in a case concerning an alleged bombing, the sentencing of the convicted is not carried out in a public court.

According to the source, the case against the monks has been mounted in the absence of even the most basic level of legal oversight and due process: from the time of arrest to sentencing the monks were denied all access to family and legal counsel; the nature of the charges and the eventual sentencing has not been made public by the court. Relatives of the monks had expected them to be released after the Olympics. Instead the monks were sentenced following the Games, although family relatives were not informed of the sentences. Details of the sentencing had come from an undisclosed contact of the source.

The circumstances surrounding the bombing and sentencing bear a striking similarity to the high-profile cases of Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, a high-ranking lama and Lobsang Dhondup (an alleged accomplice of Tenzin Deleg) who were arrested and sentenced to death (Tenzin Deleg’s sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment) in 2002 following allegations of a bomb attack. According to the US Congressional Executive Committee on China (CECC) (6): “Published and confidential reports allege that PRC authorities denied both men access to visitors and legal counsel, and subjected them to coercive methods of interrogation including beating and torture during the ‘investigation’ phase of detention”.

Director of Free Tibet, Stephanie Brigden, said:
“This case, like so many others in Tibet, demonstrates the urgent need for international media and independent agencies to be allowed immediate and free access to all areas of Tibet to investigate the accounts of arbitrary detention and abuse of Tibetans that continue to emerge. World leaders must do more to bring appropriate pressure on Chinese leaders to open up Tibet to independent scrutiny.”

Ends
For further information: Matt Whitticase t: +44 (0)20 7324 4605 / +44(0)7515 788456
Anne Holmes t: +44(0)20 7324 4605 / +44(0)7798 666658

Notes to Editor:
(1) The official Tibetan spelling is ‘Kyabe’ but widespread media reports have referred to ‘Gyanbe’ township (Ch: Xiangpi) which is situated in Gonjo county (Ch: Gongjue) in Chamdo Prefecture in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR)

(2) The sentences:
Gyurmey Dhondup (Ch: Jinmei Dunzhu), 28: life imprisonment
Kalsang Tsering, 20: life imprisonment
Dorjee Wangyal (Ch: Duoji Wangjie), 31: 15 years imprisonment
Rinchen Gyaltsan (Ch: Renqing Jiangcun), 27: 10 years imprisonment
Tsewang Yeshi (Ch: Ciwang Yixi): 9 years imprisonment
Kunga Phuntsok (Ch: Genga Pingcuo),19: 10 years imprisonment
Tsering Nyima, 21: 10 years imprisonment
Trinley Wanggyal, 21: 5 years imprisonment

(3) Two other monks from Thangkya monastery were also arrested in April. One, Tsering Wangdue (17), has been released; the other, Sichod, 18, was not sentenced at Chamdo and was not imprisoned with the other eight monks at Gojo County jail. Sichod’s whereabouts and current status remain unknown. A Tibetan lay man, Tseten (31), who worked in a shop at Tongxia monastery and who was also arrested in April in connection with the alleged bomb blast, remains in Gojo county jail. Tseten was not sentenced on 23 September.

(4) http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6392260.html

(5) Background to the arrests According to the source, tension between the township authorities and the Thangkya monks had grown in the months leading up to the alleged bomb attack due to patriotic re-education sessions at the monastery. Monks at Thangkya had given up eating meat in 2007 to demonstrate their support for the Dalai Lama. (2007 was the year of the pig, the Dalai Lama’s birth year. Tibetans believe a birth year can bring very bad luck, so the monks gave up eating meat to gain merit and bring a long life and good health to the Dalai Lama).

Alarmed at the monks’ display of support for the Dalai Lama, local government officials sent a “patriotic re-education” team to conduct sessions at the monastery in November 2007. The team conducted sessions over several days, vilifying the Dalai Lama and demanded that the monks sign a paper denouncing the Dalai Lama. The monks refused to sign the papers. The patriotic re-education team returned three weeks later but the monks, fearful that they would be made to denounce the Dalai Lama, refused to co-operate, instead putting up “Free Tibet” posters in the monastery.

Just before major protests against Chinese rule engulfed Tibet in March 2008, a much larger patriotic re-education team arrived at Thangkya monastery in early March. The team, comprising officials from the religious affairs management bureau from both town and county level, was accompanied by armed police. Monks had to report to police if they left the monastery and both monks and laypeople crossing the bridge between monastery and town were stopped and searched.

According to the state-run news agency, Xinhua, the bomb blast occurred on March 23 but, unusually, the news was not reported by Xinhua until April 14. The source reported that the blast occurred in a building in the same compound as the local town government building but that the building actually targeted was widely-known to be disused and empty. The government buildings are situated very close to the monastery and the monks were well aware which building was empty. The source has stressed that, if the monks had really been motivated to kill local government staff as alleged by Xinhua, they would not have bombed a building they knew to be empty.

The source has also stressed that the bomb blast occurred at night and that there had been no witnesses to what had happened in the government compound.

According to the source, five monks were arrested following the bomb blast although it is unclear which of the monks named above in note 2 were the five initially arrested. A further five monks and a Tibetan lay man, Tseten, were arrested soon after following a large protest at the monastery demanding the release of five arrested monks.

The source speculates that the five monks initially arrested had been under suspicion for staging resistance to the patriotic re-education sessions well before the bomb blast actually took place and that the bomb blast in a disused building had been staged by the authorities to justify arrests of monks at Thangkya who had resisted patriotic re-education.

(6) http://www.cecc.gov/pages/news/lobsang.php