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TIN News Update / 26 July, 1996/ total no of pages: 2 ISSN 1355-3313

Second Monk Dies in Lhasa Prison

A leading Tibetan dissident has died in prison in Lhasa in controversial circumstances, according to unofficial reports from Tibet, making him the second political prisoner to die in disputed conditions in two months, and the fourteenth since 1987. Another monk at the same prison has been given a 6 year sentence for trying to smuggle out a list of political detainees.

Kelsang Thutop, a 49 year old monk from Drepung monastery, died in Drapchi Prison, Lhasa, at 4am on 5th July. He had served a third of his 18 year sentence, the third longest sentence handed out to a political prisoner in Tibet since pro-independence unrest resumed there nine years ago.

Sources in Tibet with close connections to the prisoner said the monk had been ill but described the death as "unexpected" "This is a great tragedy", one of the monks' friends in Tibet told TIN, adding that the monk had earlier suffered physical abuse in the prison, and that he had suffered from malnutrition during his seven years in custody.

The human rights group Amnesty International, citing separate sources, today reported that the monk, who had suffered from high blood pressure, called on the authorities to launch an investigation into allegations that the monk had died as a result of lack of medical treatment.

For at least the first five years of his sentence Kelsang, then working as a cook in the prison kitchen, was not allowed to have visitors, and in 1993 friends who tried to visit him at Drapchi prison were told by officials that he was no longer held there.

The monk, who used to be an accountant at Drepung monastery, 6km west of Lhasa, was arrested in April 1989 at the Tibetan border as he tried to escape to Nepal. He had earlier spent three months in prison for leading the 21 monks whose street protest in Lhasa in September 1987 set off a chain of unrest, which has included over 200 pro-independence demonstrations and which is still continuing.

Kelsang Thutop, who came from Sangda in Toelung county, was one of the four leading members of a secret pro-democracy group in Drepung monastery which had printed a famous booklet on democracy, as well as a translation of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, before being broken up by police.

"An organisation built on the rule of force and coercion can never be justified," the monks wrote in their clandestine 1988 booklet, which was entitled "The Precious Democratic Constitution of Tibet".

"People with different individual views of what course of action to follow will be able to exercise their democratic rights and to say what they think without need of fear, hypocrisy, or concealment," the monks wrote in their description of a democratic Tibet which would be "administered in the future by Tibetans, for Tibetans to decide Tibetan affairs".

Kelsang, also known as Bagdro or by his ordination name of Jampel Khedrup, was among ten monks who were sentenced at a public rally on 30th November 1989, receiving sentences averaging 15 years each for membership of the group. Kelsang was described as a "main culprit" in founding the "counterrevolutionary clique" and "spreading counterrevolutionary propaganda". He was also found guilty of "collecting information and passing it to the enemy, seriously undermining national security" and "illegally crossing the national boundary", according to a Radio Lhasa account of the rally.

Kelsang Thutop's death comes two months after a 19 year old monk died in the same prison, allegedly as a result of beatings by prison guards, according to reports by the exile Tibetan government.

The monk, Sangye Tenphel, died on 6th May, nine months after he was sentenced and transferred from a detention centre to Drapchi prison. The monk, whose lay name was Gonpo Dorje, had been arrested on 15th April 1995 while staging a demonstration in Lhasa with four other monks from Khangmar Monastery in Damshung, 162 kilometres north-west of Lhasa.

The monk was said to have died after being beaten by prison officials who had found him writing pro-independence posters or a letter.

6 Years for Drepung Monk "Spy" -

A colleague of Kelsang Thutop, also serving a sentence in Drapchi prison, has had his sentence increased to 14 years for spying after he was caught trying to smuggle a list of Drapchi prisoners out of the prison, according to reports just received from unofficial sources in Tibet. The list was intended for international human rights groups, a source said.

Ngawang Pekar, a 34 year old monk from Drepung, was over half way through an 8 year sentence for taking part in a demonstration in 1991 when he was caught with the list of names in August last year.

After the list was discovered he was placed in solitary confinement for 4 months and received his additional 6 year sentence at a trial on 13th March this year. Before his arrest Ngawang Pekar was well known to foreigners because he speaks English and often guided tourists around the monastery, having been taught by a British couple who ran an unofficial language school in Lhasa in 1986-7.

A monk from Dingkhang monastery in Damshung, 29 year old Kelsang Gyaltsen, serving a 6 year sentence for taking part in a demonstration in 1991, was put in solitary confinement for two months last year for helping in the attempt to smuggle out the list of names.

An older Tibetan who escaped to Nepal whilst on parole from Drapchi prison has been returned to a confinement cell in Drapchi after he was repatriated by Nepalese police.

Tsewang Palden, a retired carpenter aged about 66, escaped to Nepal to claim asylum in June 1995 but he was among at least 200 Tibetan refugees whom police did not hand over to the Kathmandu offices of the UN High Commission for Refugees. Chinese police held Tsewang Palden, in Gutsa prison until 14th February 1996, when he was transferred to Drapchi Prison. "He is being held in a small, narrow cell", said an unofficial source, suggesting that he is held in a punishment cell which allows only restricted movement.

The carpenter had been serving a 6 year sentence for "trying to split the country" imposed after his daughter, Sonam Drolkar, a famous political activist, escaped from a Lhasa prison after being interrogated for 6 months.[end]