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V. Detention of Tenzin Delek’s Associates and Supporters

Tenzin Delek’s arrest set off a crackdown on his associates and supporters. At least sixty others, both monks and laypeople, were detained and interrogated. (See Table 1, “Associates of Tenzin Delek Who Have Been Imprisoned, Detained, Missing.”) Unconfirmed reports suggest that the number of those detained, including some held very briefly, may have run as high as eighty.70 Those sentenced, except for “co-conspirator” Lobsang Dondrup, who worked and studied intermittently in one of Tenzin Delek’s monasteries for only a year or so, had worked closely with Tenzin Delek for many years.

Tsultrim Dargye, Aka Dargye, and Tamdrin Tsering, the three monks who were taken into custody with Tenzin Delek on April 7, 2002, served one-year reeducation through labor sentences administratively imposed by the Ganzi Prefecture Reeducation Through Labor Bureau on May 10, 2002.71 According to an official report, they were charged with engaging in activities inciting “splittism.” For three weeks after their April 6, 2003 releases, they were confined to Jamyang Choekhorling, even though it was still officially closed. On April 27, 2003, local authorities permitted them to return to their families but forbade their return to Jamyang Choekhorling. They were allowed to visit Orthok monastery but were not allowed to take part in ceremonies there. Officials warned them they would continue to be watched and had to report weekly to local security officials. Those who saw the three men said they had trouble walking and could not see clearly.72

At least two other local residents, Tsultrim Dargye (he is also called Tsuldi; not to be confused with the monk of the same name) and Drime Gyatso, were detained in August 2002 after attempting to raise money for Tenzin Delek’s appeal. Drime Gyatso was released quickly, but Tsuldi was held for two months.73 Both reportedly sustained severe beatings while incarcerated. According to one source, Tsuldi was bedridden for months with kidney problems after his release.74

Tserang Dondrup (also called Jortse), an elderly village head detained in June 2002, was reportedly sentenced to a five-year term. Local residents said that the official papers given to Tserang Dondrup’s family did not refer to any crime, stating only that his sentence was related to his connection to Tenzin Delek.75 Tserang Dondrup was released on July 11, 2003. The reason for his early release is not known. Local sources reported at the time that he could not walk, his hands could not function, he could manage only a little food, and his speech was garbled. Persistent reports suggested that he developed trouble seeing after he was imprisoned. By early August, it had become easier to understand him and, according to local residents, by late September his overall condition had “improved.” However, he had not regained his pre-prison physical condition. Although he could carry on a short conversation, he quickly ran out of breath. There are reports that during much of the time he was in prison, he was held in complete darkness in an unheated cell. As one visitor reported: “I was so upset. He was so different from what he was before.”76

At the time he was seized, Tserang Dondrup was a member of the Chinese Communist Party. A few days later, officials held a public meeting to denounce him, strip him of his Party membership, and warn villagers against following in his footsteps. It has been reported that at the trial, to which six local people had been summoned as witnesses,77 accusations included “cheating the people” and “misguiding them” into supporting Tenzin Delek.

As of December 16, 2003, Tashi Phuntsog, a senior monk in his early forties, was still in custody, reportedly serving a seven-year sentence in a prison in Dartsedo. Although he was at Jamyang Choekhorling at the time of the April 7, 2002 raid, having just returned from a tuberculosis-related two-month hospital stay, he was not arrested until April 17. In the interim, he was intensely questioned. According to one unconfirmed report, in an effort to make it appear as if he had been detained with the others, security officers brought him back to the monastery on April 23 to tape footage of his “arrest.”78 Tashi Phuntsog has been characterized as Tenzin Delek’s right-hand man.

Taphel (formal name Lobsang Taphel; also known as Tabo), a local businessman, was sentenced on July 15, 2003 to a five-year term and is in prison in the Aba (Ngaba in Chinese) Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province. Local sources report that family members received no documents pertaining to his trial or sentence.79 As in all the other Tenzin Delek-related cases, no official acknowledgement of his arrest or details of the charges against him have been made available. However, unofficial sources reported that Chinese authorities were alarmed by Taphel’s ability to provide information to Western journalists about how Tenzin Delek, Lobsang Dondrup, and the others in custody were being treated and about warnings made by Chinese authorities to the public of the consequences of speaking out. Taphel also was involved in the effort to secure independent counsel to represent Tenzin Delek at his January 26 appeal hearing.80 There is credible information that he was severely mistreated for months after his detention in February 2003.81

Dzeri Di-Di and Markham Tselo were detained in mid-February but never charged. They reappeared in the Lithang area on April 5, 2002. Officials had told Dzeri Di-Di’s family to send two representatives to Tenzin Delek’s and Lobsang Dondrup’s sentencing hearing on December 2, 2002. He and another of Tenzin Delek’s relatives attended. 82

So far as Human Rights Watch was able to determine, Chinese authorities have made no disclosures about these detentions to Western governments nor have reports about the cases appeared in the Chinese media. An electronic search of the Chinese language press uncovered no reference to the trials of Tserang Dondrup, Tashi Phuntsog, or Taphel.83

According to unofficial reports, those released have had their movements curtailed, are required to report to security forces at regular intervals, and must not talk to “outsiders.” Other than private prayer, the monks among them are banned from engaging in any religious activity.

Local sources have also expressed concern about the prison guard who facilitated the taping from his cell during which Tenzin Delek declared his innocence. The contents of his statement were subsequently passed to a Radio Free Asia reporter, who made the information public in January 2003.84

At least four monks remain missing. Tenpa Rabgyal and Thupten Sherab (also called Kyido), senior monks from Orthok monastery who were not in residence at the time of the April 2002 events, were so certain they would be arrested that they immediately went into hiding. Choetsom and Pasang, young novice monks who were beaten and questioned extensively after the April 7 raid, but not detained, disappeared soon after they were permitted to leave Jamyang Choekhorling monastery. Other local Tibetans are known to have fled the community. Some have escaped the country, and Human Rights Watch was able to interview several of them for this report.

Some of those imprisoned, as well as some who escaped, worked closely with Tenzin Delek on a number of his social and cultural projects. Some were also involved in efforts to protect him when he was in trouble with government authorities. Tserang Dondrup, for example, hand-delivered petitions to Sichuan authorities during the height of a 1994 drive to prevent local authorities from extending logging into an area reserved for the public’s use. In 1998, he was part of a delegation that worked to bring Tenzin Delek home after he fled to escape arrest. In 2001, he organized a successful petition drive, directed at government authorities, requesting that Tenzin Delek be allowed to return home without fear of imminent arrest. Tashi Phuntsog assisted in the deforestation effort and worked on the petition campaigns. Aka Dargye and Tsultrim Dargye were active participants in the forestry campaign. They accompanied Tenzin Delek when, fearing arrest in 1997, he fled to the mountains. Tamdrin Tsering helped with the 2001 petition drive, and he ran a small shop that helped support Tenzin Delek’s projects.

ALLEGATIONS OF TORTURE

Despite strong circumstantial evidence of torture in connection with the 2002-2003 Tenzin Delek affair, including eyewitness accounts of released prisoners who had trouble seeing and walking, whose speech was garbled, or had sustained kidney damage, the allegations have not been looked into by investigators on the ground and so cannot be fully confirmed. Still, a pattern of severe torture and prolonged beatings of monks suspected of pro-Tibetan independence activities can be established for the Lithang/Nyagchu area. Evidence of such practices dates back at least to the 1980s.

In the late 1980s, a number of Tibetan activists in Lithang began distributing pro-independence leaflets and copies of a forbidden Buddhist prayer during major festivals, and wall posters went up under cover of darkness. After the May 1980 visit of Hu Yaobang, then China’s premier, and a Working Group of the Party Central Committee, the hardline policies of the past gave way sufficiently to allow some space for increased expression of Tibetan culture and religion. The dangers associated with pro-independence activities remained. By the time the Chinese government put down five major demonstrations in Lhasa between 1987 and 1989, any critical expression was likely to be viewed as a call for independence and harshly put down. Courts handed down long sentences to those thought to be protest organizers. Even those who only took part were subject to severe torture. Several deaths resulted. Many of those severely injured were monks.

In the eastern areas, where Chinese surveillance was not as effective, monks continued to organize independence protests until well into the 1990s. But by the mid-to late-1990s, the danger to activists had become too great to continue with pro-independence activities on the same scale as before.a

Those detained were tortured, ousted from their monasteries, and subsequently put under constant surveillance. Fearful of re-arrest, many ultimately fled their homes. Several cases in Kardze were well known; others have only recently come to light. Of five monks detained in 1993-94 for leafleting in the Lithang area, one was so severely tortured that he died after less than a month in custody. Another, released after serving eight years of a ten-year sentence, remains physically and cognitively impaired today. As one informant put it, “When you talk to him, he is not really there.”b Both men were strong and healthy when apprehended. Another major incident of torture occurred in 1996 after a monk, first abused in 1988, returned home from self-imposed exile.c Another monk’s firsthand account details a severe beating during a few days in police custody in 2000. He had been attempting to obtain a permit to stay in the Nyagchu area and made the mistake of talking back during a “reeducation” session.d At least three people held in 1999 in connection with one of the bombings were reported to have been severely abused.e



a For further information see, Asia Watch (now Human Rights Watch/Asia), Human Rights in Tibet (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1988), pp. 57-64; Asia Watch, Evading Scrutiny: Violations of Human Rights after the Closing of Tibet (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1988); Asia Watch, Merciless Repression: Human Rights in Tibet (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1990); Asia Watch, 81 Political Prisoners Held in Drapchi Prison, Lhasa (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1991); Asia Watch and Tibet Information Network, Political Prisoners in Tibet (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1992); and Asia Watch, Detained in China and Tibet (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1994), pp. 33-57 and pp. 163-215.

b Human Rights Watch interview with LS, December 19, 2002.

c Human Rights Watch interview with CW, April 10, 2003.

d Human Rights Watch interview with KR, May 1, 2001.

e Human Rights Watch interview with DQ, April 3, 2003.




70 “Disciples for Condemned Monk Call for Leniency: 80 Tibetans Reportedly Detained,” Radio Free Asia, May 30, 2003. Human Rights Watch estimates that at least sixty to seventy more were questioned repeatedly, and over one hundred fled the region. Of those detained, Human Rights Watch has verified the names and crcumstances of fifty-one. See Table 1, “Associates of Tenzin Delek Who Have Been Imprisoned, Detained, Missing.”

71 Reeducation through labor is an administrative system used to detain and punish those who have committed “minor crimes” but are not legally criminals. There is no judicial input at any point in the proceedings. The three bureaus, civil affairs, public security, and labor, that form local Reeducation Through Labor Management Committees, may sentence people to as many as three years (which can be extended to a fourth if the person is considered to be insufficiently reeducated) in a labor camp. Often, however, the local Public Security Bureau will act on its own. The regulations that govern the procedure limit the applicable categories of cases. Although political cases are not included, the procedure continues to be used to hold political prisoners. See Human Rights Watch, “Reeducation through Labor in China,” December 8, 1998, http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/china-98/laojiao.htm (retrieved November 10, 2003).

72 Human Rights Watch interviews with JS and MW, April 28, 2003 and with GK, April 23, 2003. Firsthand reports of torture a decade earlier mentioned being beaten around the eyes and subsequent trouble seeing clearly.

73 Human Rights Watch interview with LS, December 15, 2003.

74 Human Rights Watch interview with NS, November 18, 2003.

75 Human Rights Watch interview with GK, April 23, 2003.

76 Human Rights Watch interview with OT, July 14 and with RP and NA, October 13, 2003.

77 Human Rights Watch interview with GK, April 23, 2003.

78 Human Rights Watch interview with EJ, May 8, 2003.

79 Human Rights Watch interview with IM, October 19, 2003.

80 Human Rights Watch interview with KR, December 28, 2003.

81 Human Rights Watch interviews with WQ and MT, August 4, 2003 and with HM, August 7, 2003.

82 Human Rights Watch interview with FP, December 19, 2003. Representatives from each of Kardze’s eighteen counties also were “requested” to attend.

83 Search conducted June 28, 2003. Sites visited include: www.chinacourt.org, www.chinanews.com.cn, www.people.com, http://fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/home.shtml (in English and Chinese), http://www.legaldaily.com.cn/, as well as government websites of Australia and the United Kingdom.

84 Recording of Tenzin Delek obtained from the detention center in Dartsedo (in Chinese Kangding) on January 20, 2003, received by Radio Free Asia the following morning.


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February 2004