MB Civic

Tibetan monk sentenced to three years term for “inciting masses”
TCHRD/Press Release
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Press Release: TCHRD/Eng/PR/214/2008
Date: 2 February 2007

Khenpo Jinpa, a monk from Chogtsang
Talung Monastery in Serthar County, Kardze “Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture” (“TAP”), Sichuan, has been sentenced to
three years prison term by the Kardze
People’s Intermediate Court on 16 July
 2007, according to confirm information
received by the Tibetan Centre for Human
Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). He was
charged of endangering the state security
by “anti-government propaganda and
incitement of masses”.

On 8 August 2005, political leaflets calling
for Tibetan independence and the Dalai
Lama’s long life were in distribution at the
Serthar County festival ground. The Public
Security Bureau (PSB) upon investigation
into the incident suspected Khenpo Jinpa
of carrying the activity. On 23 August 2006,
three PSB officers arrived at Chogtsang
Talung monastery and took him away to a
detention centre in Dartsedo County. Three days later ten vehicles full of PSB officers arrived at the monastery. The officers
broke the lock at Khenpo Jinpa’s room and
went on a rampage looking for evidence.

In the morning of 4 November 2006, the
PSB brought Khenpo Jinpa to the location
of the alleged crime in Serthar County and
took pictures of the scene. Earlier some
individuals suspected of working with him
were also briefly detained for ten to fifteen
days for interrogations. Subsequently on
16 July 2007 Kardze People’s Intermediate
Court sentenced him to three years’
imprisonment term. He was later
transferred to a prison (Tib: Ra-nga-kha
Prison) in Dartsedo County, Kardze “TAP”
and continues to be imprisoned there till
date.

Khenpo Jinpa, 37 years old, was born to a
nomadic family in Donchen Village, Dartse
Township, Serthar County. He was
ordained as a monk at the Chogtsang
Talung Monastery at a young age. In 1992
he joined the Serthar Buddhist Institute in
Larung Valley where he studied and
mastered the Buddhist text. Eight years
later he returned to his original monastery
and undertook the responsibility as the
abbot of the Chogtsang Talung Monastery.
The monastery has an enrollment of about
a thousand monks.

In the summer and autumn of 2001,
hundreds of monks’ huts at the Serthar
Buddhist Institute were destroyed by the
People’s Armed Police and a ceiling of
thousand monks was imposed against the
total enrollment of about ten thousand.
The then Chief Abbot of the institute,
Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok, was held in
incommunicado detention for a year.
Khenpo died under mysterious
circumstances in January 2004.