Tibetan monk “released” after spending more than a decade in prison
Thabgey Gyatso
In another case of early release of tortured prisoners, Tibet Watch learned from a source inside Tibet that in mid-September 2021, a 46-year-old monk named Thabgey Gyatso was released from Dingxi Prison near Lanzhou city, before completing his 15-year prison sentence.
The sentence, which was handed down in a closed trial by the Intermediate People’s Court of Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture on 21 May 2009, would have otherwise kept him in prison until 2024. However, sources reported to Tibet Watch in 2019 that Thabgey was already suffering from a range of severe illnesses including partial paralysis and damage to both eyes. During 2018, he spent most of his time at Dingxi Prison Medical Centre.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a source told Tibet Watch, “Thabgey Gyatso is released and has reached home but details of his whereabouts and health condition cannot be stated clearly since he is under the close watch of security authorities and under surveillance. Like other Tibetan political prisoners, the authority has deprived him of political rights for five years. All his friends and relatives are worried about his health.”
Thabgey Gyatso is from Sangkung in Sangchu County, Gansu province. A monk from Labrang Monastery, he was arrested along with Tsultrim Gyatso and charged with “endangering state security”. Along with many other monks from Labrang Tashi Kyil monastery, Thabgey and Tsultrim took part in protests on 9 April 2008 to speak of the real and unaddressed grievances of Tibetans to a visiting group of international journalists. Families of Thabgey and Tsultrim hired Chinese civil rights lawyer Li Fangping from Beijing Ruifeng Law Firm when they were detained but were denied access to represent them and informed by Gansu High People’s Court that the two monks had chosen a different lawyer.
Thabgey’s release follows the news of the six-month reduction of the 19-year prison sentence of Tsultrim, bringing his release time to November 2026.
There are large numbers of Tibetans who have been criminalized and arrested in connection with their roles in the overwhelmingly peaceful 2008 uprising in Tibet. Many of them are still languishing in prison. They are found in extreme and severe health conditions. Torture during detention and imprisonment is a systematic practice in Chinese prisons which also deny access to medical care and block legal representation. This treatment has resulted in a number of deaths of Tibetan prisoners spanning decades. Earlier this year, Tenzin Nyima and Kunchok Jinpa both died from horrific torture inflicted on them after being released in a near-death state before completing their prison sentence. Dorjee Tashi, arrested in July 2008 on allegations of being a “secessionist” and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2010, is still being kept in prison in failing health even after subjecting him to beatings with electric batons, cuffed to an iron bar, and hung in the air, asphyxiated, poured hot chili fluid through nostrils, and sleep deprivation.