Criminal Justice

Tibet Information Network (TIN) has obtained new information about sentence reductions and releases from prison for several Tibetan political prisoners. According to the TIN report, the Dui Hua Foundation of San Francisco recently received an unprecedented amount of prisoner information from the Chinese government in response to longstanding requests. The Chinese response involved information about individuals who have been sentenced for crimes of counterrevolution or endangering state security. The response includes information about 13 Tibetans. John Kamm, the Executive Director of Dui Hua, stressed that not only did Chinese officials provide information about prisoners in reply to formal requests from other governments, but they also profferred information about prisoners who had previously been unknown.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on February 13 that five monks of Dragkar Traldzong Monastery in Qinghai province have been sentenced to prison terms of two to three years, "apparently for publishing politically sensitive poems." The abbot, Tashi Gyaltsen, was reportedly one of those imprisoned. The monks were detained in mid-January 2005 and sentenced about three weeks later, according to RFA’s source, who asked not to be named. The monks were involved in producing a monastic newsletter that contained a poem that officials may have interpreted as praising two monks from the same monastery who were jailed in mid-2002 for pro-independence activity.

Chinese police detained a Tibetan monk from one of the most important Buddhist sites in Qinghai province in mid-May 2005, according to a June 3 report by Radio Free Asia (RFA). Jigme Dasang (or Dazang), honored six times as a "Three Best Student" (san hao xuesheng), was in a prayer meeting at Kumbum Monastery when police took him into detention. A Huangzhong County Public Security Bureau spokesman confirmed the detention to RFA. Unnamed sources told RFA that anti-government posters appeared in the monastery and that monks feared there may be more detentions. Jigme Dasang is from Xinghai county, where five Tibetan monks were detained earlier this year, according to another RFA report.

An official of the Shigatse (Rikaze) Prefecture Intermediate People's Court, located in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), acknowledged that during the past decade the court sentenced more than 20 Tibetans to between one and five years imprisonment for offenses that included possessing photos of the Dalai Lama, according to a September 1 Radio Free Asia (RFA) report. The official, who declined to be identified, asserted the court's authority to "sentence any individual who commits reactionary actions." He confirmed an RFA report on August 11 that an 18-year-old Tibetan had been imprisoned in 2001 for bringing religious material featuring the Dalai Lama's photo with him when he returned from India to his family home in Gansu province.

Three Tibetans who attempted to carry photographs of the Dalai Lama and audio tapes of his religious teachings from Nepal into the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) were sentenced to imprisonment in July 2001, according to a Radio Free Asia (RFA) report on August 11. The Shigatse (Rikaze) Intermediate People's Court sentenced two of the men, Lungtog and Tennam, to four years imprisonment. The third man, identified by the pseudonym Jigme, was sentenced to two years imprisonment and recounted his experience to RFA after he fled the TAR. He showed RFA a copy of the official court document sentencing the men for illegally crossing the border into China and "instigation to split the country."

Chinese security officers in Lhasa detained Sonam, a monk employed at Lhasa's Potala Palace, on or about August 21, according to a September 17 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report. In his early 40s, Sonam has worked at the Potala since the 1980s, and was considered a trustworthy employee, according to the report. Authorities sent him on an official visit to Nepal in the mid-1990s, and recently promoted him to the position of chapel caretaker. HRW received unconfirmed reports that two other Potala monks were detained about the same time, and may have been released.

A prison official informed the family of imprisoned Shanghai lawyer and housing rights activist Zheng Enchong that he had broken an unspecified rule on December 10, and that they were barred from seeing or speaking to him, Amnesty International reported on December 20. Zheng is serving a three-year sentence for disclosing state secrets. Zheng's punishment came days after the German Judges Association announced (in German) that it had awarded Zheng its 2005 Human Rights Award.

The following text was retrieved from the Law-Lib.com Web site on January 18, 2006.