Six writers and former political prionsers sentenced to prison in Eastern Tibet
Kardze court sentences the group from four to fourteen years
Chinese authorities sentenced six Tibetan writers and former political prisoners from four to fourteen years last month on charges including “inciting separatism” and “endangering state security”.
A source informed Tibet Watch that the Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate People’s Court in Sichuan gave the prison sentence last month. However, their whereabouts and well-being remain unknown due to surveillance of communication.
The arrest of the six Tibetans was reported in April last year but the identity of two was unknown at the time. It has now emerged that one of them is a writer from Drago, a county neighboring the Serthar region where all the other arrestees hail from. He was last known to be detained in late 2020 after his second book was discussed by some of his friends. The other is a member of an anti-Chinese Communist Party protest group founded by Gangbu Yudrum, who is one of the other arrestees. The prison sentence comes after they were detained for one to two years.
The six Tibetans are:
Pema Rinchen, Arrested late 2020, Sentenced to 4 years in September 2022
Gangbu Yudrum, Arrested 22 March 2021, Sentenced to 7 years in September 2022
Seynam, Arrested 23 March 2021, Sentenced to 6 years in September 2022
Gangkye Drubpa Kyab, Arrested 23 March 2021, Sentenced to 14 years in September 2022
Tsering Dolma, Arrested 2 April 2021, Sentenced to 8 years in September 2022
Samdup, Arrested 4 April, Sentenced to 8 years in September 2022
Pema Rinchen (པདྨ་རིན་ཆེན།)
Pema Rinchen is a writer from Drago County who was disappeared late in 2020 after some of his friends talked about his second book. He was held incommunicado ever since then until September 2022, when he was sentenced to 4 years in prison
But his current whereabouts, which court imprisoned him, or what reason for his arrest remains unknown.
Rinchen was previously arrested in Kardze County by the Drago County Public Security Bureau on 5 July 2011 under the pretext of “inciting ethnic hatred”. He was severely beaten and admitted to a local hospital the next day. His arrest was due to his book named Look (ལྟོས།) in which he strongly condemned the policies of the Chinese Communist Party in Tibet with particular reference to the brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests by Tibetans in 2008 and the mishandling of the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Kyegudo in 2010.
The book also contains the author’s interviews with many Tibetans who participated in the peaceful protests that shook Tibet in 2008.
He had been kept under close watch by security personnel ever since then and summoned to the local police station during events they regarded as sensitive and questioned.
Pema Rinchen is in his 30s, and has a sister. They hail from Drago County in Kham, eastern Tibet, where their mother stays home and has very long been suffering from an illness.
Gangbu Yudrum (གངས་བུ་གཡུ་བྷྲུཾ།)
Tibetan activist Gangbu Yudrum from Serthar county was arrested on 22 March 2021, and his whereabouts and reasons for arrest were also not given. He had previously been imprisoned for three years for his role in the 2008 Tibetan protest in his region where he raised the banned Tibetan flag and called for the return of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama. He was released on 19 February 2011 but arrested again on 14 May 2012 and was imprisoned for two years for his role in promoting a volunteer “Protest group against Communist China” ༼དམར་རྒོལ་གདོང་ལེན་ཚོགས་པ༽ along with some of his friends.
Seynam (སྲས་རྣམ།)
Seynam, a Tibetan writer, environmentalist, and language teacher, was also secretly arrested on 23 March around 5:40 pm. Details about the reason for his arrest and his health condition were withheld by the Chinese authorities in the region.
He was previously arrested by the Chinese authorities of Serthar county, Karze Prefecture on 15 September 2020 along with ten other Tibetans, for holding a meeting on the welfare of Tibetan parents. His father’s name is Dungkar and his mother’s name is Liutso.
He hails from in Tok-Tsa village (ཏོག་ཚ་སྡེ་བ།) in Rag-Tam township, (རགས་བཀྲམ་ཡུལ་ཚོ།) Serthar County. His father’s name is Dungkar (དུང་དཀར།) and mother's name is Liutso (ལེའུ་མཚོ།). He has a daughter along with his wife at home.
Gangkye Drubpa Kyab (གངས་སྐྱེས་སྒྲུབ་པ་སྐྱབས།)
Gangkye Drubpa Kyab, also known as Gang Methak, a young Tibetan writer, teacher, and former political prisoner, was arrested on the evening of 23 March 2021 around 5 pm local time. His writings are widely published in magazines and books. He has also written on the Tibetan struggle.
He was first detained on 15 February 2012 when he was working as a teacher in a private school in Drago County. Then on 1 August 2013, People’s Court of Nyagchu County arrested him for his involvement in creating “Protest group against Communist China” (དམར་རྒོལ་ཚོགས་པ།). After three years of imprisonment, he was released on 16 September 2016 however he was again detained shortly afterwards for 17 days for keeping a photo of the Dalai Lama’s on his head, a gesture that denotes profound reverence for Tibetans.
Due to the excessive beating and poor food while in prison, he suffered from malnourishment and developed multiple health complications, including loss of vision and amnesia, and heart and kidney problems.
Gangkye Drubpa Kyab was born in 1979, to Thupten Nyima and Wangthang Dolma in Kardze Prefecture, Serthar county. He is married to Wangchuk Lhatso and has two children.
His acclaimed book remains Bloodred Writings of 2008 Uprising (༢༠༠༨ ལོའི་ས་བྱི་ཁྲག་བྲིས་དམར་པོ།) while his other writings were widely published in magazines and books such as Voice of Fate (ལས་དབང་གི་རྒྱང་འབོད།), Suffering of Time (དུས་ཀྱི་ན་ཟུག), Today’s Tear (དེ་རིང་མིག་ཆུ།), The Color of Time (དུས་ཀྱི་ཁ་དོག), Journal of Khata (ཁ་བཏགས་དཀར་པོའི་ཚགས་དེབ།) and .
He was born in 1979, to Thupten Nyima (ཐུབ་བསྟན་ཉི་མ།) and Wangthang Dolma (དབང་ཐང་སྒྲོལ་མ།) in Ki-Phen village (གེ་འཕན་སྡེ་བ།) in Rag-Tam township, (རགས་བཀྲམ་ཡུལ་ཚོ།) Serthar County, Kardze Prefecture. He and his wife Wangchuk Lhatso (དབང་ཕྱུག་ལྷ་མོ།) have two children.
Tsering Dolma (ཚེ་རིང་སྒྲོལ་མ།)
On 2 April 2021, the Chinese authorities in Serthar County arrested another Tibetan activist and former political prisoner, Tsering Dolma. She had previously been arrested in 2008 and 2012 for taking part in a protest against China and beaten while in prison.
Due to the excessive beating and torture, she suffered perennial health complications of amnesia, epileptic fits, heart disease, and a broken elbow. She has been regularly kept under the close watch of security forces by requiring her to register her presence in the village, thus restricting her movement.
Tsering Dolma hails from Taktse Village, Serthar county, Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Her father, Solo, was also arrested along with her in 2008. Her mother’s name is Tsokyi. She has two kids along with her husband Karma Wangchuk.
Samdup (བསམ་འགྲུབ།)
On 5 April 2021, Samdup was arrested by Serthar County police. He was previously arrested in June 2012 and on 1 August 2013, the same day Gangkye Drubpa Kyab was given prison sentence by People's Court in Nyagqu County (ཉག་ཆུ་རྫོང་།), Samdup was sentenced to five years for his role in Tibetan struggle and joining activities of the group “Protest group against Communist China”.
However he was released on 19 August 2016 before the end of his prison term, and nearly a month before Gangkye too would be released. But he was arrested again on 18 September and detained for 17 days just like Gangkye at the county police station.
Samdup was born in 1992, to Sogyal (བསོ་རྒྱལ།) and Jidui (གཅེས་སྡེས།) in Gochok Village (མགོ་མཆོག་སྡེ་བ།) in Golog WalShul Serthar (མགོ་ལོག་དབལ་ཤུལ་གསེར་རྟ།) in Amdo, eastern Tibet.