Dharamshala, 20th April: Three of the nine Tibetans sentenced to prison in China’s Qinghai region in 2018 for establishing an “illegal group” supporting land rights have been released, according to RFA, three more members of the group will be disclosed in June. Sonam Gyal and two others who were not recognized were released earlier this year after serving their sentences. Sonam Gyal and two others were released in January after serving their prison sentences, and Tashi Tsering and two others are set to be released in June after serving their sentences. The identities of the other two people who are scheduled to be released are also unknown.
While the second trio’s contract is slated to expire in June, it is also questionable if they would be dismissed properly, worried by RFA’s source. The remaining three had their cases sent back for retrial and were condemned to seven years again. The time they had previously served in prison was nullified, they claimed.
The nine Tibetans, all residents of Horgyal village in Rebgong (in Chinese, Tongren) county in Qinghai, were sentenced to three to seven years in prison by the County People’s Court in April 2019, according to the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala, India (TCHRD).
The nine individuals were detained in July 2018 and formally arrested in August, serving their terms at a big prison facility in Rebgong. The nine, who were part of a larger group of 24, had mobilized village support in a petition signed on February 21, 2017, to demand the return of Horgyal village land given over for use by three brick factories in exchange for lease payments to the village that ended when the works were closed down by government order in 2011.
Authorities reimbursed the factories annually for their loss of business for the next seven years, but payments to the Horgyal village council halted after that, according to TCHRD, adding that locals had appealed for the land’s restoration since then.
Image Credit: RFA
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