Tibetan Monk Given 5-Year Prison Term For Sharing Teachings by Dalai Lama

Lobsang Thinley had shared teachings by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, defying official warnings to stop.

A court in western China’s Sichuan province has sentenced a Tibetan monk to five years in prison for sharing books and teachings by Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, RFA has learned.

Lobsang Thinley, a monk in his early 20s from Kirti monastery, was taken into custody on July 1 by police in  Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) county, with his family left uninformed of his whereabouts for several months after his arrest, according to Tibetan sources.

“He was charged with disseminating teachings by the Dalai Lama and sharing books about him,” Kyisar Lhudup, a Tibetan living in exile in Paris said, citing contacts in the Ngaba region.

“It came to light in September that he is now being held at the Mianyang Prison in Sichuan, and that authorities informed his family in a letter that he had been sentenced to five years in prison,” Lhudup said.

“They were also told they could visit him and bring him some food,” Lhudup said, adding that no family members or legal representatives had been present at Thinley’s trial.

Thinley had run into trouble with police in the past for sharing teachings by the Dalai Lama and was detained and released several times before, Lhudup said. “This caused his family and other relatives great concern, but he was undeterred by warnings from the police and continued his activities right up until his arrest in July,” he said.

This latest five-year sentence comes as Chinese authorities ramp up a political crackdown in Ngaba, Lhudup added.

“For fear of retaliation, his relatives have remained tightlipped about Thinley’s sentence. Information about it was therefore delayed for a while in reaching outside contacts, and it is difficult now to ascertain the current situation in Ngaba,” he said.

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is widely reviled by Chinese leaders as a separatist intent on splitting Tibet, a formerly independent Himalayan country which was invaded and incorporated into China by force in 1950, from Beijing’s control.

The Dalai Lama, who now lives in exile in India, says only that he seeks a greater autonomy for Tibet as a part of China, with guaranteed protections for Tibet’s language, culture and religion.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibet and Tibetan regions of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of ethnic and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment and extrajudicial killings.

Reported by RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Copyright © 1998-2020, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. https://www.rfa.org

Chinese Police Arrest Uyghur Sisters and Mother in Urumqi for Sending Goods to Turkey

Chinese authorities in Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi on July 4 arrested two Uyghur sisters and their mother for sending goods to their eldest sister in Turkey, and a third sister was arrested a week later, the eldest told Radio Free Asia.

Read More

UN Secretary-General Addresses World Artificial Intelligence Conference Meteorological Forum

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the opening session of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference Meteorological Forum.

Read More

At Tidal Flats,Seal Pup Found with Gunshot Wound to its Head

After being shot in the head, a seal pup found in a tidal basin in Washington is recovering.According to Casey McLean, executive director and veterinary nurse at Sealife Response, Rehab and Research, or SR3, the harbor seal is making progress on its way to recovery, WLBT3 reports.

Read More

Transylvanian First Romanian Origin Cat Breed

The newest cat breed Transylvanian, which originated in the mountainous Carpathian regions, especially in Poland and Hungary, has a distinctive coat pattern with black and white-silver hairs showing on the face, ears, tail, and paws.

Read More

AI Powered Zero-Day Attacks Detection and Prevention

Zero-day attacks take use of unknown vulnerabilities in firmware, hardware, or software before developers have a chance to fix them.

Read More

North Korean Buildings Near DMZ Could Be Rocket Infrastructure, Experts Say

North Korea has constructed at least 21 identical drive-through structures near its border with South Korea that could potentially aid in the operation of truck-based missile or rocket weapons systems, satellite imagery analyzed by Radio Free Asia suggests.

Read More

High-Level Segment of Economic and Social Council: Way forward to 2030

A wide view of the high-level segment of the Economic and Social Council. On the screen is Melissa Fleming, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications.

Read More

Alabama Antique Store Crashed by Deer

Around 12:42 p.m. on July 14, a deer crashed through the front glass window close to the entrance of Blue Daisies Antique on Reeves Street, Dothan, Alabama, United States, causing damage to a local store.

Read More