Tibet: China: Beijing condemns Tibetan monk to three years in prison

Lhasa - Dhonyoe Dorjee, another monk from the Kirti monastery, Ngaba County, has been sentenced to three years in prison. At present he is being held in Mein-yang prison, near Chengdu in Sichuan. There is no information on the details of his trial, the court that handed down the sentence or the date on which the Court examined his case. The charges under which he was sentenced also remain unknown. (07/21/2011 China sentences two Tibetan monks to three years in prison).

Dhonyoe Dorjee was arrested on April 8, 2011 in his monastery, and has been held in solitary confinement ever since. Dhonyoe Dorjee, 34, belongs to the Pelkho Rawe family, from the town of Cha Ngaba County. He was ordained at the monastery of Kirti when he was very young.

The tense situation at Kirti Monastery continues. About three hundred government officials, who come from other counties in the Ngaba Autonomous Prefecture have occupied the monastery, to keep the monks under close surveillance. In addition, another group of Chinese police in Ngaba county, over 300, are conducting daily sessions of "patriotic re-education" on the monks. There is a strict surveillance in the monastery as well as the immediate surroundings. Many police officers, soldiers and Special Force officers patrol the area around the monastery. All of the monks’ activities and movements are limited and closely supervised.

Some sources claim that three other young men have been convicted and imprisoned in Mein-Yang, but their names and details of their case remain unknown. The Kirti Monastery, with over 2500 monks, is one of the largest and most active centres of Tibetan culture and religion in the region.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) calls upon the Chinese authorities to respect human rights of Tibetans in Tibet, and ensure an open, honest justice for the prisoners of conscience in the country. The Centre condemns the forced "patriotic re-education", '"Legal Education", as the state prefers to call it, put in place in various religious institutions in Tibet.