In marking the 65th annual United Nations’ Human Rights Day, Central Tibetan Women’s Association earnestly requests the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Committee Against Torture, UN Women, Amnesty International, International Court of Justice and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to support for the release of Tulku Tenzin Delek in order to get medical treatment as his physical condition is very critical and we also request your excellency to focus on health condition of all political prisoners who are suffering with serious illness in China’s prison and detention centers.
Following is the appeal letter we sent to these international bodies.
Ref: TWA/OF/34/13
To
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
c/o Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
8-14, avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Date: Dec 9, 2013
Subject: Support for the release of Tulku Tenzin Delek in order to get medical treatment as his physical condition is very critical.
Respected Sir/Madam,
2013 marks the 64th year of Chinese occupation of Tibet. Since 1949, thousands of Tibetans have been killed and thousands of sacred monasteries destroyed. It is inevitable that Tibetans are still suffering under this brutal occupation.
In marking the 65th annual United Nations’ Human Rights Day, Central Tibetan Women’s Association earnestly requests that the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to support for the release of Tulku Tenzin Delek in order to get medical treatment as his physical condition is very critical and we also request your excellency to focus on health condition of all political prisoners who are suffering with serious illness in China’s prison and detention centers.
The well-known religious leader Tulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche has been imprisoned for eleven years; during this time his family members and relatives were able to visit him only seven times, most recently on August 16, 2013 at Chenduan prison in Da-Zhu town near Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province. During the latest visit, it was observed that Rinpoche’s physical condition has become very critical, he has heart problems, often falls unconscious and his whole body shivers when he speaks.
On April 7, 2002, he was arrested and falsely charged with being involved in the April 3, 2002 bombing in the Central Square of Sichuan’s capital Chengdu. Falsely alleging that Rinpoche had exploded the bomb and that he had splitist motivations, the Intermediate People’s Court of the
Dartsedo (Chinese: Kangding) county, Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) passed verdicts on December 2, 2002 for his disciple Lobsang Dhondup to be sentenced to death, while Rinpoche’s death sentence was suspended for two years.
On January 26, 2003, the People’s High Court of Sichuan Province executed the disciple Lobsang Dhondup on the basis of the verdict issued by the Intermediate People’s Court of Kardze TAP, and left unchanged the two years’ postponement of the Rinpoche’s death sentence.
Later, on January 24, 2005, Rinpoche’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and since then there has been no change to his circumstances.
Chinese authorities are continuously accusing and arresting innocent Tibetans on false charges. In August 2013, Lobsang Kunchok, a 40-year-old monk from Kirti monastery in Ngaba, and his 31-year-old nephew Lobsang Tsering were arrested for allegedly inciting eight people to self-immolate. The Intermediate People’s Court of Ngaba (Chinese: Aba) prefecture further charged Lobsang Kunchok with passing on information about the self-immolations to overseas media – he was given a death sentence suspended for two years and denied political rights for life. Lobsang Tsering was given a ten-year prison sentence and denied political rights for a further three years.
On March 14, 2013, self-immolator Kunchok Wangmo’s husband Dolma Kyab was arrested for refusing to accept that his wife’s death was due to their family feuds. Five months later, the Intermediate Court of Ngaba region announced that he was to be sentenced to death, stating that he strangled his wife to death and burned her body after an argument over his drinking problem.
It is, tragically, an undeniable fact that China continues to falsely convict the family members, friends and relatives of self-immolators as murderers or inciters. We request that Your Excellency intervene in the unjust trials and arbitrary detentions of innocent Tibetans.
Yours sincerely,
Tashi Dolma
President
Central Tibetan Women’s Association
www.tibetanwomen.org
TWA has 56 regional chapters spread across the globe and over 16,000 members outside Tibet. Today, TWA is the second largest Tibetan NGO and the only women’s NGO in exile that advocates human rights for Tibetan women in Tibet and works to empower Tibetan women in exile. TWA’s slogan is ‘Advocacy for home, Action in exile.’