Tsering Dorjee, 45, has been detained in Tibet for over a month in a “re-education centre” for having a phone conversation with his younger brother about the importance of learning the Tibetan language, reports the Dharmshala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). Tsering Dorjee lives in Peleb village which is in the Tashi Zom Township County in Shigatse city in the traditional Tibetan province of U-tsang – known by the Chinese as the Tibetan Autonomous Region. His younger brother Wangude Tsering lives in exile.
Wangdue Tsering told TCHRD that his brother Dorjee was arrested in Tibet on February 20 this year while on his way to meet his daughter who is studying at a boarding school in Lhatse. Tsering said that he and his brother spoke over the phone in the morning and in the evening, he received the news of Dorjee’s detention.
“I had called my older brother that morning and we talked about how important it was to teach [the] Tibetan language to our children. I told him if we didn’t advise our children early on, they would learn only Chinese,” he said.
Dorjee was told that he had been detained because he had maintained contact with outsiders and talked about Tibetan language education for children which, he was told, was a “political crime”. Dorjee was kept for a month in Dingri County Public Security Bureau re-education centre before being handed over to the Dingri police. People detained in re-education centres are reported as being subjected to long interrogations and beatings. TCHRD reports that Dorjee was released with a warning that sharing his detention experience with others would result in severe consequences.
Dorjee’s brother Wangdue Tsering came to India in 2011 with 14 other Tibetans to attend the Kalachakra teaching by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and since then has been unable to return home. Tsering being barred from going back to Tibet has also caused his family members to face persecution from the Chinese authorities, including a ban on travelling to neighboring cities without permission. Tsering says that, fearing further harassment, his brother told him not to attend Tibetan schools in exile.
Tsering, along with the group, attempted to return to Tibet in 2012: they were detained at the border by Chinese border police and spent four months in detention and a week in solitary confinement. They were subsequently handed over to the Dingri County police and held there for a month, undergoing further torture, interrogations and beatings followed by deportation back to Nepal. There they were taken into custody and their documents confiscated, meaning they could not live in Tibet. Tsering says that the UN refugee agency UNHCR and a Human Rights Organisation in Nepal spent four days negotiating for their release.
Tsering told TCHRD that it has been seven years since then and he is unsure of when he will be able to return home.
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