Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, Dharamsala

Delhi - 3 September 1997: Tanak Jigme Sangpo, a 70 year old Tibetan, born in Chushur near Lhasa, is serving one of the longest sentences imposed on a prisoner of conscience in Tibet. By the time he is released in the year 2011, Tanak Jigme Sangpo will have spent a total of 41 years in prison.

He was first arrested in 1960 when, as a teacher at Lhasa primary school, he was charged with "corrupting the minds of the children with revolutionary ideas". In 1964, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment in Sangyip prison as a result of comments regarding Chinese repression of Tibetans, and was later sent to a labour camp in Lhasa.

In 1970, he was sentenced to ten years hard labour in Sangyip prison on charges of inciting his niece to escape to India to report Chinese atrocities to the Dalai Lama. Tanak Jigme Sangpo was released from prison in 1979 and transferred to the "Reform-through-Labour" Unit No. 1 in Nyethang, 60 km west of Lhasa, but was arrested again on 3 September 1983 by the Lhasa City Public Security Bureau. Tanak had been seen on 12 July 1983, pasting a personally written wall poster at the main gate of the Tsuklagkhang Temple in Lhasa.

In the official sentence paper, issued on 30 November 1983, the Lhasa City Intermediate People's Court noted that the defendant had "evidently never seriously reconsidered his past counter-revolutionary crimes". He was therefore charged with "spreading and inciting counter-revolutionary propaganda" and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment and five years deprivation of civil and political rights.

On 1 December 1988, Tanak was again prosecuted for raising "reactionary slogans" relating to the Chinese suppression of Tibet whilst in Drapchi prison. Found once more guilty of "spreading and inciting counter-revolutionary propaganda", his sentence was increased by five years and the period of deprivation of civil and political rights extended a further year.

On 6 December 1991, he was reported to have been beaten for shouting slogans during a visit to Drapchi prison by the Swiss Ambassador to China and to have been subsequently held in solitary confinement for at least six weeks. Large sheets of metal had been erected on either side of him to lower the temperature of the cell and he had been refused any extra clothes. His sentence was again increased, this time by a further eight years imprisonment and an additional three years deprivation of civil and political rights. This brings his current sentence to 28 years from 1983. Today Tanak is 70 years old, he is extremely weak and his eyesight is rapidly deteriorating.

"Tanak Jigme Sangpo symbolises the sufferings of thousands of other Tibetans who are languishing in various Chinese prisons in Tibet. His case is one of more than a thousand Tibetan political prisoners who are all being arbitrarily detained by the Chinese authorities," stated Mr. Lobsang Nyandak, Executive Director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.

Mr. Nyandak added, "Tanak's case verifies that the Tibetan people inside of Tibet continue to be deprived of their fundamental human rights and freedoms, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Chinese Government, in complete disregard of all UN conventions, including those which it has ratified, has continued to violate the human rights of the Tibetan people ever since it occupied Tibet in 1959. The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy is gravely concerned over the plight of Tanak Jigme Sangpo and urges the Chinese authorities to release him immediately."

In its 1996 Annual Report: "Tibet: One More Year of Political repression", the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, a non-governmental organisation based in Dharamsala, recorded 1018 Tibetan political prisoners still detained in various prisons in Tibet for the peaceful expression of their opinion. Of those, 265 are female political prisoners and 50 are juvenile political prisoners below the age of 18. In 1996 eight Tibetan political prisoners were reported dead after having suffered severe torture while in prison.