Urges China to release artist immediately

NEW DELHI, 30 December - A spokesperson of the Central Tibetan Administration condemned the 18-year sentenced given on 26 December by the Chinese authorities to an exile Tibetan Scholar whom the Chinese authorities have accused of being a "spy".

"This is simply outrageous," said Tempa Tsering, the secretary of the Department of Information and International Relations of the Dharamsala-based Central Tibetan Administration

"Till now the Chinese authorities haven't managed to come up with even a shred of evidence that Ngawang Choephel is actually engaged in espionage activities as stated by the Chinese authorities," Tempa Tsering said.

Tempa Tsering urged the Chinese authorities to release Ngawang Choephel immediately. He said that China's unprecedented treatment of Ngawang Choephel is an indication of its growing nervousness in Tibet "Leave alone having sent him to Tibet to do espionage, as accused by the Chinese authorities, Dharamsala did not even know he was in Tibet until the news of his arrest," said Tempa Tsering.

Though the Central Tibetan Administration urged that Ngawang Choephel be provided a free and fair trial with a proper defense lawyer, the Chinese authorities have deliberately ignored this and has instead decided Ngawang Choephel's fate in a mock trail.

Radio Tibet, monitored by the BBC, broadcast the news of the 18-year sentence given to Ngawang Choephel and referred three times to a "Certain foreign country" for financing and supplying equipment to Ngawang Choephel.

In responding to a letter by Senator James Jeffords in October, the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, made it clear that the United States was the country which sent Ngawang Choephel to Tibet and to which Ngawang Choephel was supplying information from Tibet.

In mid-1995 Ngawang Choephel was arrested by the Chinese authorities in Shigatse, Tibet's second biggest city. Appeals and campaigns have been launched around the world to get the Chinese authorities to release the Tibetan musician.

Ngawang Choephel is a musician with a deep passion to preserve the dying folk songs and dances of traditional Tibet. He was an important artist of the Dharamsala based Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts and in l993-l994 went to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship to study and teach music at Middlebury College.

Ngawang Choephel returned to India and in 1995 went to Tibet to record on video the different folk songs and dances of Tibet.

December 31, 1996