Tsongon Tsering, a resident of Tsaruma village in Kakhog (Ch: Hongyuan) County, Ngaba (Ch: Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, has been sentenced to eight months in prison on 27 October by the Kyungchu (Ch: Qiongxi) County People’s Court. He was convicted on the trumped-up charge of “disrupting social order.” Tsering had been detained incommunicado after gaining widespread attention online for exposing large-scale illegal mining along the river in his village.
On 9 November, a respected Tibetan writer and intellectual, Rongwo Gendun Lhundup was released from a Chinese prison. While Tibetan writers, artists, intellectuals, and activists inside and outside Tibet celebrated his release on social media, the reality remains grim. Like all former Tibetan political prisoners convicted on trumped-up charges, Rongwo Gendun Lhundup, despite being released, is placed under heavy surveillance and restrictions.
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) conducted a seven-week long advocacy and capacity building activities aimed at countering China’s transnational repression in Europe. Part of TCHRD’s strategic actions to hold Chinese government accountable for spreading fear and disempowering exiled Tibetan activists and organisations, TCHRD’s executive director Ms Tenzin Dawa and manager Ms Phurbu Dolma held briefings and interactions with various stakeholders including parliamentarians, policy makers, public officials, human rights experts and other civil society members on the findings of TCHRD’s report on transnational repression and discussed possible solutions. Workshops on the ways to counter transnational repression were organised to build the capacity of Tibetan civil society members in six European countries.
Tsongon Tsering, a 29-year-old Tibetan from Tsaruma village in Kakhog (Ch: Hongyuan) County, Ngaba (Ch: Aba) Prefecture, Sichuan Province, was detained earlier this week after he posted a video registering a complaint about large-scale sand and gravel mining along the river in Tsaruma village, which is the source of Asia’s two largest rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow River.
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) calls on the Chinese authorities to immediately disclose the whereabouts of four Tibetans who have been subjected to incommunicado detention in Ngaba (Ch: Aba), Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the Tibetan region of Amdo.
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) strongly condemns the recent sentencing of Lobsang Thapkhey, a former librarian at Kirti Monastery in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the Tibetan province of Amdo, for merely attempting to import and distribute religious and cultural books from India to Tibet and for engaging in the Tibetan Buddhist practice of making financial offerings to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Kirti Rinpoche.