Monk sentenced to three years term for “inciting masses”

Khenpo Jinpa
Khenpo Jinpa

Khenpo Jinpa, a monk from Chogtsang Talung Monastery in Serthar County, Kardze “Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture” (“TAP”), Sichuan, has been sentenced to three years prison term by the Kardze People’s Intermediate Court on 16 July 2007, according to confirm information received by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). He was charged of endangering the state security by “anti-government propaganda and incitement of masses”.

On 8 August 2005, political leaflets calling for Tibetan independence and the Dalai Lama’s long life were in distribution at the Serthar County festival ground. The Public Security Bureau (PSB) upon investigation into the incident suspected Khenpo Jinpa of carrying the activity. On 23 August 2006, three PSB officers arrived at Chogtsang Talung monastery and took him away to a detention centre in Dartsedo County. Three days later ten vehicles full of PSB officers arrived at the monastery. The officers broke the lock at Khenpo Jinpa’s room and went on a rampage looking for evidence.

In the morning of 4 November 2006, the PSB brought Khenpo Jinpa to the location of the alleged crime in Serthar County and took pictures of the scene. Earlier some individuals suspected of working with him were also briefly detained for ten to fifteen days for interrogations. Subsequently on 16 July 2007 Kardze People’s Intermediate Court sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment term. He was later transferred to a prison (Tib: Ra-nga-kha Prison) in Dartsedo County, Kardze “TAP” and continues to be imprisoned there till date.

Khenpo Jinpa, 37 years old, was born to a nomadic family in Donchen Village, Dartse Township, Serthar County. He was ordained as a monk at the Chogtsang Talung Monastery at a young age. In 1992 he joined the Serthar Buddhist Institute in Larung Valley where he studied and mastered the Buddhist text. Eight years later he returned to his original monastery and undertook the responsibility as the abbot of the Chogtsang Talung Monastery. The monastery has an enrollment of about a thousand monks.

In the summer and autumn of 2001, hundreds of monks’ huts at the Serthar Buddhist Institute were destroyed by the People’s Armed Police and a ceiling of thousand monks was imposed against the total enrollment of about ten thousand. The then Chief Abbot of the institute, Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok, was held in incommunicado detention for a year. Khenpo died under mysterious circumstances in January 2004.

Note: Also check TCHRD’s special report titled Destruction of Serthar Institute and related documentary film. Write to office@tchrd.org for a copy of the report and documentary.

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