Tibetan monk condemned to 12 years in jail: he had Dalai Lama videos
Sonam Gyalpo was arrested in August 2005 because videos and pictures of the Dalai Lama were found in his home. He has already been arrested before due to his opposition of China's domination in Tibet.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) The Lhasa Intermediate People's Court has sentenced a Tibetan monk, Sonam Gyalpo, to 12 years in jail on charges of "endangering state security", according to the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). His family has challenged the sentence handed down in mid-2006.
Sonam, 44, was arrested at the end of August 2005 around the time of celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the setting up of the "Tibet Autonomous Region" (TAR). The authorities arrested or expelled all those who may have "disturbed" the grand festivities.
Secret police claimed they discovered four videotapes containing teachings of the Dalai Lama in Sonam's home as well as some political literature and pictures of the Buddhist spiritual leader, in exile since 1959.
After confiscating this material, the officers used some pretext to draw the monk to a secondary exit of Potala Palace in Lhasa (the former winter residence of the Dalai Lama) and then spirited him away in a vehicle without a number plate. Nothing was heard about him for months.
A former monk at the Drepung Monastery, Sonam Gyalpo was among 21 monks who initiated a public demonstration in Lhasa in 1987, for which he was charged with being a "counter-revolutionary" and imprisoned for three years in Drapchi Prison. He was rearrested in 1993 and detained for a year.
Now he is imprisoned in Qushui, west of Lhasa. The TCHRD says Sonam has not broken any laws and has called upon the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to intervene against his unlawful imprisonment.
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09/05/2016 12:08
