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I. Summary

On December 2, 2002, the Kardze (Ganzi in Chinese) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate People’s Court in Sichuan province sentenced Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, a locally well-known and respected lama, to death. Tenzin Delek, charged with “causing explosions [and] inciting the separation of the state” was granted a two-year suspension of his death sentence, and remains in prison at this writing. His alleged co-conspirator, Lobsang Dondrup, was also found guilty, and was summarily executed on January 26, 2003.

The prosecutions came after a series of bombings in western Sichuan province between 1998 and 2002. A report issued the same day by Xinhua, China’s official news agency, alleged that the two had “engaged in crimes of terror.”1 At the sentencing hearing, Tenzin Delek declared his innocence. In a tape smuggled from detention in mid-January 2003 and obtained by Human Rights Watch, he repeated this claim, saying, “I have been wrongly accused. I have always said we should not so much as raise a hand against another.”2

Based on interviews with numerous eyewitnesses, the report provides a detailed account of the circumstances surrounding Tenzin Delek’s arrest and conviction. It concludes that the case was the culmination of a decade-long effort by Chinese authorities to curb his efforts to foster Tibetan Buddhism, his support for the Dalai Lama as a religious leader, and his work to develop Tibetan social and cultural institutions. His efforts had become a focal point for Tibetans struggling to retain their cultural identity in the face of China’s restrictive policies and its continuing persecution of individuals attempting to push the accepted boundaries of cultural and social expression.

The report also includes a detailed account of Tenzin Delek’s life and work, and of his interactions with local officials on a range of religious and social matters, illuminating rarely seen aspects of life for Tibetans in areas outside the TAR. It shows that though Tenzin Delek adopted a moderate approach, regularly interacting with Chinese officials on behalf of local Tibetan populations, he also criticized local officials when he felt they were unresponsive or misguided and was steadfast in his loyalty to the Dalai Lama as a religious leader. Appendices to the report include several original source materials, including a translation of a lengthy statement made by Tenzin Delek in 2000, as well as the transcript of a Radio Free Asia interview with one of the sentencing judges.

More than a year after the court made known its verdicts against Tenzin Delek and Lobsang Dondrup, many reasons remain for questioning its findings and those of the review court or courts that upheld the original sentences. The trial was procedurally flawed, the court was neither independent nor impartial, and the defendants were denied access to independent legal counsel. Lawyers chosen by members of Tenzin Delek’s family were not permitted to defend him at his appeal hearing. Claiming that state secrets were involved, Chinese authorities still refuse to release any of the evidence presented at trial.

Informed local sources maintain that local officials would not have been able to arrest and convict Tenzin Delek without first forcing a “confession” from his alleged co-conspirator Lobsang Dondrup, who allegedly named Tenzin Delek as his partner in the planning and financing of the bombings. Spectators present in court report that Lobsang Dondrup recanted his confession during the sentencing hearing.

Many of Tenzin Delek’s associates, under surveillance for years, were rounded up in the wake of his arrest. At least two men are still in custody: Tashi Phuntsog, a monk, reportedly received a seven-year sentence, while a local resident named Taphel is serving a five-year term. Tserang Dondrup, a local resident, also received a five-year term but was released after serving only thirteen months.There are credible reports that all three were seriously mistreated when being apprehended and in detention. There have been no official statements about their alleged crimes. Nothing is known about their trials or the evidence presented.

Many other Tibetans have been detained, questioned, and subjected to threats or surveillance as part of the Chinese government’s response to the bombings. Human Rights Watch has learned that approximately sixty Tibetans were detained for periods ranging from a few days to several months. Many were close associates of Tenzin Delek. Three have already served out administrative sentences and remain under strict surveillance. At least four Tibetans have disappeared and over one hundred others, fearful of arrest, have fled the community. One monk was so frightened by persistent questioning that he left the monkhood. Local inhabitants report having been warned that they or their families risked officially-sanctioned reprisals if they spoke publicly about the trials, their admiration for Tenzin Delek, or, for those who had been jailed or imprisoned, their treatment while incarcerated.

Throughout his monastic career, Tenzin Delek championed the economic, social, cultural, and spiritual aspirations of Tibetans in four counties of the Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), a predominantly Tibetan area in Sichuan province. He believed Chinese government officials in the area had little inclination to address Tibetan needs, preferring instead to use their positions for personal gain. Tenzin Delek tried to address the needs of Tibetans in a variety of ways: he established schools, clinics, an orphanage, and old-age homes. He mediated economic conflicts between Tibetan communities and was active in efforts to preserve the area’s fragile ecological balance from deforestation, excessive mining, and other potentially damaging projects. He built a permanent structure at a major monastic center which previously had depended on tents for shelter, and he expanded its geographic reach through the establishment of seven branch monasteries. Perhaps most threatening to the authorities, Tenzin Delek’s efforts attracted a coterie of several hundred devoted disciples and widespread support among local people at a time the Chinese government was consolidating its control of Tibetan areas and struggling to diminish monastic influence and reinforce secular authority.

Many Tibetans once resident in the predominately Tibetan populated counties of Nyagchu (Yajiang in Chinese) and Lithang (Litang in Chinese), in Tenzin Delek’s home base in Kardze, and in several other nearby areas, spoke to Human Rights Watch at great risk to themselves. Their accounts yield insights into the breadth of the projects Tenzin Delek undertook to improve the lives of nomads and subsistence agriculturalists and to revive Tibetan Buddhism in an area where it had been silenced for more than a decade.

Over a twenty-five-year period, as Tenzin Delek’s local status rose and he successfully challenged official policies on a number of issues, local authorities in the Kardze TAP came to perceive him as a threat and sanctioned progressively harsher measures to contain his social and cultural activities. By 1997, as a renewed campaign (labeled the “patriotic education” drive) to bring Tibetan monasteries under full government control extended eastward from the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) to Tibetan areas in Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces, Kardze officials moved decisively. A first step was to label many of his activities political and, therefore, forbidden. His religious activities were curtailed. He could no longer move about freely. He could not speak publicly about the Dalai Lama as he could earlier. By 2000, Kardze prefecture authorities stripped him of all his religious prerogatives. Two years later, in 2002, he was formally arrested on what appear to be trumped-up bombing charges.

Though reliable information is scarce, Human Rights Watch is concerned that the Chinese government’s treatment of Tenzin Delek is not an isolated phenomenon. As detailed below, there have been other major attempts in the Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture to control religious expression, monastic influence, local community leadership, and what officials view as political dissent.

Recommendations

Human Rights Watch urges the Chinese government to:

  • immediately release Tenzin Delek Rinpoche pending a new trial conducted in accordance with international due process standards, including rights of access to counsel, adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense, and an open trial permitting international observers;
  • immediately release all others arbitrarily arrested and detained in connection with the Tenzin Delek affair, including Tashi Phuntsog and Lobsang Taphel;
  • publish all the Tenzin Delek/Lobsang Dondrup court (trial and appeal) documents and all relevant evidence, including materials submitted to the Supreme Court for review;
  • publish the charges and evidence against all those still imprisoned or detained and those who served out their sentences or were released early;
  • immediately suspend all restrictions on the civil liberties of those released;
  • authorize a credible, independent investigation into the arrest and trial of Tenzin Delek and Lobsang Dondrup and publicize the results. If China cannot conduct such an investigation, it should invite the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions or an independent panel of jurists to do so.
  • discipline or prosecute as appropriate officials responsible for violations of the rights of Tenzin Delek, Lobsang Dondrup, and others connected to the Tenzin Delek affair;
  • offer protection and support for any individuals wrongly detained, imprisoned, tortured, mistreated, accused, or otherwise abused as part of the Tenzin Delek affair and allow such individuals to file administrative or judicial complaints against responsible government agencies and officials;
  • allow access to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture in order that he may visit China on terms consistent with his mandate;
  • revise the Criminal Procedure Law to ensure that information obtained through torture or under duress is excluded as evidence in a court of law;
  • end the practice of holding secret or closed trials or appeals. Allow family members, journalists, and independent observers to attend all court proceedings;
  • end the prosecution of individuals for communicating with journalists, including international journalists, and human rights organizations;
  • ensure that “ethnic…minorities…shall not be denied the right, in community withother members of their group, to enjoy their own culture [and] to profess and practice their own religion,” as stipulated in Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); and
  • abolish reeducation through labor, an inherently arbitrary system which denies due process and a court hearing to those deprived of their liberty.

In addition, Human Rights Watch urges the international community to raise the cases of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche and all others detained, arrested, or sentenced in relation to the crackdown in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture at all bilateral human rights dialogues and high-level diplomatic meetings.

A Note on Methodology

In preparing this report, Human Rights Watch spoke with nearly 150 Tibetans in many different countries, many of whom fled their homes after Tenzin Delek was seized. Forty-seven of the 150 were interviewed in depth. Some interviews were conducted in person, while others were done by telephone. Some interviewees recorded answers to follow-up questions and submitted tapes. In order to protect their identities and so as not to further endanger them or members of their families, some of whom already are under surveillance, the location of the person at the time of the interview is not noted in the report. Interviews were conducted in English or Tibetan and recorded when possible. The entire transcript was then translated into English. Interviews began in December 2002 and continued into December 2003. Secondary source materials supplemented the interviews.

According to those willing to speak on the record, the flow of information has been inhibited by a general climate of fear in the affected areas, an increase in the number of security officers present in the affected communities, an initial upsurge in detentions, and warnings from authorities to the public to avoid speaking about the cases. Interviewees told us that at least some monks did not dare to go to Nyagchukha, the Nyagchu county seat, in their robes. Villagers knew they were not to congregate in groups. Former prisoners knew that speaking out about their prison experiences meant they “would be brought back to prison again.”3 There were reports that local Tibetan officials knew their phones were tapped, apparently because they were suspected of sympathy for imprisoned political prisoners and to the monastic community. Associates of Tenzin Delek knew their movements were tracked. Relatives of those involved kept quiet. They reported officials banned their use of fax machines, on making long distance telephone calls, and on traveling.4

A note on names as used in this report: Chinese authorities convert Tibetan names to Chinese characters. Pronunciation of the characters differs from that of the Tibetan. To complicate matters, the Chinese characters are then romanized. Tenzin Delek, whose lay name was A-ngag Tashi becomes A’an Zhaxi. Lobsang Dondrup becomes Lorang Dengzhu.



1 “Two Tibetans sentenced to death in SW China,” Xinhuanet, January 26, 2003, http://202.84.17.73.7777/Detail.wct?RecID=0&SelectID=1&ChannelID=6034&Page=1, (retrieved November 13, 2003).

2 Transcript of recording of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche obtained from the detention center in Dartsedo (Kangding in Chinese), the capital of the Kardze Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, on January 20, 2003. Radio Free Asia received the recording the following morning.

3 Human Rights Watch interview with CW, April 10, 2003 and with AQ, June 2003.

4 “China gags relatives of Tibetans in bombing case,” Radio Free Asia, February 4, 2003.


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February 2004