Washington, March 11 (CNA) Forty-three members of the US House of Representatives have sent a strongly-worded letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, urging her to secure the release of Ngawang Choephel, a Tibetan former Fullbright scholar who has been sentenced by mainland Chinese authorities to 18 years in prison for espionage.

The nonpartisan group of US lawmakers, led by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said they are not aware of any evidence which supports Choephel's conviction or his harsh sentence, and that they take strong issue with Beijing's assertion that American citizens were suborned into espionage by Choephel.

They also said they are "dismayed" that the State Department is considering a "hollow" approach to a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva to criticize Beijing's human rights practices.

"(Mainland) China's abysmal, increasingly harsh human rights practices must be met with an appropriate response," they told Albright in the letter.

Rep. Sanders, together with Reps. Ben Gilman (R-N.Y.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), have also introduced legislation in the House that would condemn Choephel's imprisonment and urge the United States to support a resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission to criticize Beijing's human rights abuses. The House legislation is similar to a non-binding resolution introduced in the Senate by Sen. Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).

Choephel studied ethnomusicology at Middlebury College in Vermont in 1992 and 1993. In the summer of 1995, he returned to Tibet to make a film about traditional Tibetan music and dance. He was arrested by communist Chinese security authorities in the fall of 1995. On Dec. 26, 1996, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage. (N.K. Han)