Dharamshala, 18th January: According to RFA, authorities in western China’s Sichuan province seized a life-size statue of a respected Tibetan religious leader that was being transported into Tibet last year and arrested those involved in its fabrication and delivery. According to Tenzin Yarphel, a former student of Tulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche who now lives in Europe, the statue of Tulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, who died in a Chinese prison under unknown circumstances in 2015, was commissioned by the late monk’s disciples and made by artisans in Shenzhen, China.
The statue of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was seized by police in Dartsedo, Sichuan’s Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in June 2021 while being transported to Lithang, the religious leader’s home county, according to Yarphel. According to Yarphel, a Tibetan man named Kalsang Tsering, who had agreed to pick up the statue and transfer it to Lithang, was apprehended along with an assist.
The two men were interrogated and beaten for about 20 days and ordered to avoid any contact with Rinpoche’s family in Lithang, Yarphel said. Yarphel also added that they were forced to promise not to involve themselves with any activity like this again in the future. Police in Lithang later raided Rinpoche’s younger sister Dolkar Lhamo’s home.
Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, 65, died on July 12, 2015, 13 years into a 22-year sentence in Sichuan after a false conviction on a charge of bombing a public area in Sichuan’s provincial capital Chengdu in April 2002, according to rights groups and supporters.
He was originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment. He is widely revered among Tibetans for his efforts to defend Tibetan culture and the environment. Lobsang Dondrub, an assistant, was executed nearly immediately, drawing outrage from human rights organizations that questioned the trial’s fairness.
Disclaimer: All information presented was retrieved from RFA; tibetanjournal is not responsible for any of the information presented here.