Dharamshala — Senior Tibetan Buddhist monk was released from Chinese prison after serving ten years for for "separatist activities and leaking state secrets."
Dharamshala — Senior Tibetan Buddhist monk was released from Chinese prison after serving ten years for for "separatist activities and leaking state secrets."
Adruk Lopoe was released from Mianyang Prison and arrived home, in Lithang County, eastern Tibet, at around 11 pm local time on August 21, 2017, sources told the TPI. He was arrested after protesting the arrest of Tibetan nomad Runggye Adak in 2007 for his protest at the annual horse race festival in Lithang County in eastern Tibet, in which he had climbed onto the stage and called for His Holiness the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet.
Photos of his arrival home show Lopoe was greeted by both lay and monastic Tibetans with ceremonial scarves in his honour. But details of Lobsang’s physical condition are still unknown.
On November 20, 2007, following months of beatings and torture during interrogation sessions, the Karze Intermediate People's Court sentenced Adak to eight years in prison. The same court sentenced six other Tibetans for taking part in the demonstrations calling for Adak's release. Adrug Lopoe and Kelsang Gyatso, both nephews of Adak, were sentenced to 10 and five years respectively, while Jamyang Kunkhyen was sentenced to nine years. Lothok and Jamyang Tenzin were sentenced to three years each, and Lobsang Phuntsok got a year and a half in prison.
Kunkhen, an artist and schoolteacher and Lopoe, a senior Buddhist monk were charged with "contacting hostile foreign forces" and "sharing state secrets with separatists". Tenzin was released after the completion of his sentence but was arrested again and later sentenced to three years. While in prison Kunkyen reportedly suffered a stroke, for which he was given no medical attention.
Adak's arrest, on August 1, 2007, was for his protest at the annual horse race festival in Lithang County in Karze, eastern Tibet in which he had climbed onto the stage and called for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet.
Adak known as a respected local figure and father of eleven, was released in July 2016, having completed his eight-year prison sentence. He was detained in August 2007 after emphatically addressing a crowd of thousands of Tibetans who had gathered at the Horse Festival of the Lithang County in eastern Tibet.
According to sources, Adak, cutting a striking figure in a white cowboy hat and traditional chupa slung over his shoulder, called for the release of political prisoners such as 11th Panchen Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, a highly respected senior Buddhist monk, who died in Chinese prison while serving a life sentence on the dubious charge of "conspiring to cause explosions".
Adak also called the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet. The nomad had taken the security personnel by surprise and was able to complete his address to roars of approval from the crowd before he was arrested by armed police.
He also called on local Tibetans to stop fighting among themselves over land, water, and harvesting of the prized Yartsa Gunbu (caterpillar fungus). He then climbed down from the stage and went straight to Naglu Tenzin, a monk who was actively involved in the "patriotic education" campaign and denounced on his face his double standard in dealing with the religious affairs of the monastery. He again went back to the stage and continued shouting slogans until the Chinese police took him away.
In response to Adak's arrest, over two hundred Tibetans congregated outside Lithang police station to appeal for his release; some managed to get inside and demanded to speak to local officials. Eye-witnesses described how police and soldiers violently dispersed local gatherings in Lithang by using tear gas, stun grenades and metal batons.
During detention, Adak suffered severe beatings and torture that partially damaged his vision in one eye and rendered him deaf in one ear. It is not uncommon for political prisoners, particularly Tibetans and Uighurs to die before the completion of their terms due to lack of medical care in prison for injuries sustained during detention.
Tibet was invaded by the Communist regime in China, starting in 1949. Since that time, over 1.2 million out of 6 Tibetans died as a direct result of China's invasion and continued occupation of Tibet, over 6000 monasteries have been looted and destroyed— Crimes against Humanity and Genocide include murder, massacres, torture, rape, starvation, extreme deprivation, forced marches, enslavement, brutal violence, and systematic extermination. The communist regime continues to call this a 'peaceful liberation', that the "Tibetans are living in a Maoist socialist paradise."
