Tibetan activists hold a candlelight vigil in Dharamshala over custodial death of Tibetan in China
Feb 20, 2021
Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh) [India], February 20 : Tibetan activists on Friday held a candlelight vigil in Dharamshala over the custodial death of a Tibetan in China.
"The incident shows the cruelty that exists in Chinese prisons towards political prisoners," said a protester.
This comes after a Tibetan tourist guide, Kunchok Jinpa, aged 51, who was tortured in Chinese prison succumbed to prison injuries resulting in large-scale fury over the custodial deaths.
Meanwhile, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) expressed concern over the increasing number of custodial deaths in China.
There had been no news of Jinpa's whereabouts since his detention in 2013. New information indicated that the Chinese authorities detained Kunchok Jinpa on November 8, 2013, providing his family with no information on his whereabouts, and later convicted him of leaking state secrets for passing information to foreign media about local environmental and other protests in his region.
His 21-year sentence is unparalleled for such an offence, and no information about his trial or conviction had been publicly available outside China until now, stated TCHRD.
Kunchok Jinpa died in a hospital in Lhasa in the Tibetan Autonomous Region on February 6, 2021, less than three months after being transferred there from prison without his family's knowledge.
However, local sources said he had suffered a brain haemorrhage and was paralysed.
Earlier, Tenzin Dawa, a researcher at TCHRD said, "A well-regarded Tibetan man in his early 50s known for his strong courage and conviction in exercising human rights in Tibet has been beaten to death by the Chinese authorities in Tibet while he was being transferred to a hospital in Lhasa. He was sentenced to 21 years imprisonment because he shared information about peaceful protests that were happening inside Dhiru in Tibet to the outside world i.e. international media."
She further stated, "So there must be an immediate impartial and independent investigation of custodial deaths in Chinese prisons and all these investigations must be carried out according to the United Nations standards. We also call upon the Chinese authorities to revoke its policy of arbitrary detentions and imprisonments."
Tibet has been under Chinese-occupation since March 1959. Over 155 Tibetans have set themselves on fire inside Tibet since 2009 in protest against China's repression and occupation.
