secret detention

19/05/2014 News / TCHRD Statements

Former abbot subjected to secret detention shortly after release from prison

Lodoe Rabsel, former abbot of Karma Monastery

Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) is deeply distressed to learn that Lodoe Rabsel, the former abbot of the historic Karma Monastery, was subjected to secret detention for more than a week soon after he was released on completion of his two years and 6 months prison term.

According to information received by TCHRD, Lodoe Rabsel was released on 5 May 2014 from the high-security Powo Tramo Prison (also known as Bomi Prison) located in Pome (Ch: Bomi) County in Nyingtri (Ch: Nyingchi/Linzhi) Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

Upon release, authorities banned the senior monk from wearing his monastic robes, joining his monastery or resuming his religious practice. Before his imprisonment, he served as the abbot of Karma Monastery in Karma (Ch: Gama) Township in Chamdo County, Chamdo( Ch: Changdu) Prefecture, TAR. Karma Monastery, founded by the 1st Karmapa Duesum Khenpa in the 12th century, is the original monastery of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

25/09/2013 News

Tibetan poet found detained after months of disappearance

Cover of Tsol (Eng: Search), a poetry collection authored by Lobsang Namgyal who had been detained since May 2012. — Cover of Tsol, a poetry collection authored by Lobsang Namgyal who had been detained since May 2012.

A Tibetan man who authored a book of poetry was found detained nine months after his disappearance from his work place in Chengdu city in Sichuan Province.

According to information received by TCHRD, Lobsang Namgyal, 26, was secretly detained sometime around 15 May 2012 from Buddha Cultural Centre, where he was working as a part-time employee in Chengdu. For months, his family members and relatives made many attempts to find him but to no avail. Local sources cite unsubstantiated information that he was picked up by Public Security Bureau officers from the centre.

Under the pseudonym Sangmig (Eng: Secret Eye), Lobsang Namgyal had authored a collection of poetry titled Tsol (Eng: Search) in which he wrote about his life’s goals and about the state of fellow Tibetans. In February 2013, sources learned that he was being held at a detention centre in Chengdu.

21/08/2012 News

Senior monk sentenced to 7 years for sharing information

A senior Tibetan monk who went missing for eight months since his arbitrary arrest last October has been sentenced to seven years in prison for ‘sharing pictures of nun Tenzin Wangmo and information related to her self-immolation protest with outsider’ by an Intermediate People’s Court in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

The sentence was passed on 18 June 2012 by an Intermediate People’s Court in Ngaba Prefecture.

The charges leveled against Yonten Gyatso, 37, a monk who had held various official posts at his Khashi Monastery in Ngaba County also included “sharing information since 2008 about political events in Tibet by attempting to make telephone calls to human rights mechanisms of the UN”, a source tells TCHRD.