Published: October 3, 2012
BEIJING — Four Tibetans, including two teenage Buddhist monks, have been given lengthy prison terms for supporting the resistance movement to Chinese rule that has involved the self-immolation of more than 50 people since 2009, according to Radio Free Asia, a news organization financed by the United States government.
The sentences, from 7 to 11 years, reflect Beijing’s hard-line approach to a protest campaign that has so far proved difficult to tame.
Two of the four Tibetan men were charged with leaking news of the protests to “outside contacts,” and the other two were accused of helping a fellow monk burn himself to death at Kirti Monastery, a hotbed of anti-Chinese resistance in Sichuan Province. All of the men were incommunicado for several months; the news that they had been tried and convicted was relayed to Radio Free Asia through two exiled Tibetan monks with contacts in the region.
“Two days before their trial, their family members were sent a notice by the court that the trial was about to begin, but they were not allowed to hire a lawyer for their defense,” Radio Free Asia quoted the two monks as saying. “Afterward, they were given only a few minutes to meet with their family.” The four men were tried in September, said the exiled monks, who live in Dharamsala, India.
The youngest of those jailed, Lobsang Jangchub, 17, was charged with helping a fellow monk named Gepe set himself on fire in March and handed an eight-year sentence. Another monk from the same monastery, Lobsang Tsultrim, 19, was given 11 years for his role in Gepe’s self-immolation, Radio Free Asia said.
The other two convicted men, tried by Barkham People’s Middle Court in Sichuan Province, were accused of “leaking news from inside Tibet to outside contacts,” Radio Free Asia said. A layman, Bu Thubdor, 25, was given a seven-and-a-half year term, and Lobsang Tashi, 26, a monk from Kirti Monastery, was sentenced to seven years.
