China-Tibet
Tibetan monk, who was once jailed for opposing Chinese rule, dies after years of ill health
Lhasa: A Tibetan monk, who was once jailed for six years for opposing Chinese rule in Tibet, died after his release from prison due to deteriorating health, media reports said on Friday.
He was released from prison in 2018.
Geshe Tenzin Palsang, a resident of Draggo (in Chinese, Luhuo) county in Sichuan’s Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, died in September after his condition suddenly worsened, a source inside Tibet told Radio Free Asia.
“This was due to the torture he suffered in prison and lack of medical care after his release,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Palsang, a monk at Draggo monastery, was detained on April 2, 2012, on charges of organizing a demonstration challenging Beijing’s rule, the source said. “After that, he briefly disappeared until he was sentenced to six years in prison for his alleged involvement in the protest.”
Palsang was released in April 2018, but Chinese authorities constantly harassed and surveilled him, the source added.
Also speaking to RFA, a Tibetan living in exile said that Palsang had openly called on Chinese authorities in 2012 to end their “repressive policies in Tibet and their genocide and persecution of the Tibetan people."
“He also demanded that Tibetans in Draggo be given the right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion,” the source said, also speaking anonymously to protect his contacts in Tibet.
“Later, when he was released from prison, his health condition was so severe that he was not even able to stand up on his own without someone’s support,” he added.
Speaking to RFA, Pema Gyal — a researcher at London-based Tibet Watch — said that China’s government routinely tortures Tibetans, “and especially influential and intellectual Tibetans,” inside Chinese prisons.
“And later when they are released they are denied proper medical treatment,” Gyal said. “So the Chinese government has tried in this way to eradicate many of these influential Tibetans who openly criticize China’s repressive policies.”
Geshe Tenzin Palsang, also known as Tengha, was born in 1965 and was proficient in both the Tibetan and Chinese languages, sources told RFA.
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