Kunchok Jinpa, 51, a Tibetan tour guide who was serving a 21-year sentence in a Chinese prison, died in hospital in Lhasa on February 6. He had been imprisoned for reporting protests that took place in his native region seven years ago, reports Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international non-government organisation based in New York. The report said he was transferred to hospital from prison in November last year, without his family’s knowledge. On January 29 his family learned that he was receiving emergency treatment in hospital; and some of his family went to donate blood for him, but were unable to see him. Local sources said he suffered from a brain hemorrhage and was paralysed.
Kunchok Jinpa was a resident of Village No 5 in Chaktse township in Driru, a county in Nagchu prefecture. According to HRW’s report, he was detained by Chinese authorities on November 8, 2013 and initially no information about his whereabouts was made available. He was later convicted for leaking state secrets by passing information to foreign media about local environmental and other protests in his region, and sentenced to 21 years. “His 21-year sentence is unparalleled for such an offense, and no information about his trial or conviction had been publicly available outside China until now,” said HRW
It is believed that he posted information about a mining project which was proposed at the sacred mountain, Naklha Dzamba, and the subsequent protests against the proposal by locals which took place in May 2013. The information was shared through social media and direct to the Tibetan media outside Tibet. It is also reported that following his arrest, very little information about the situation in Driru was available outside China.
Jinpa was educated at Suja school in Himachal Pradesh and attended the Tibetan Studies Institute in Varanasi in India; he was proficient in both the Tibetan and English languages. He returned to Tibet in 1998 and worked as tour guide. Reportedly he had visited India several times, his last visit for the 2012 Kalachakra ceremony given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
His last post on WeChat – a microblogging account – was in April 2013, several months prior to his arrest. The post said “I am now at the bank of a river. There are many people behind me watching me, and I am sure to be arrested. Even if they arrest me, I am not afraid, even if they kill me, I have no regrets. But from now on, I will not be able to give reports. If there is no word from me, that means I have been arrested.”
“Kunchok Jinpa’s death is yet another grim case of a wrongfully imprisoned Tibetan dying from mistreatment. Chinese authorities responsible for arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, and the death of people in their custody should be held accountable,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at HRW.
“This is just the latest case of a Tibetan dying after being imprisoned for daring to defy the occupying Chinese government. Just last month the news of the death of a young monk who was part of a peaceful demonstration in 2019 was smuggled out of the country,” said John Jones, Campaigns Manager at Free Tibet, a London-based organisation established to support the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom
Calling for international intervention in China’s ongoing acts of arbitrary detention, Sikyong Lobsang Sangay, President of the Central Tibetan Administration also known as the Tibetan government-in-exile, said, “The international community and UN human rights experts must intervene and investigate these cases of arbitrary detention, conviction without due process, torturing and killing of Tibetans by the Chinese government”.
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