The husband of a Tibetan woman who self immolated has been sentenced to death for her murder.
Dolma Kyab
Chinese state-run media reported a court ruling that Dolma Kyab, 32, from Zoege County strangled his wife on March 11 over an alleged drinking problem. However news had circulated previously that his wife, Kunchok Wangmo, 31, had self immolated on March 13 on the eve of the Xi Jingping’s formal selection as the new President of China – something she had done to protest over Chinese rule in Tibet.
The woman’s family has categorically denied the allegations, stating the pair were: “on good terms with each other.”
Following his wife’s self immolation Dolma Kyab was arrested for failing to comply with the authorities’ “official version” of events which stated that the incident was a result of a family feud. He leaves behind him an elderly mother and an 8-year-old daughter for whom Kyab was the only earner in the family.
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has publicly stated that China often resorts to bribing families into silence over self immolations. “The latest death penalty indicates that the authorities have hardened their stance on the issue of self-immolation, by making an example out of a few defiant relatives to scare and intimidate other family members and relatives of self-immolation protesters into toeing the official line,” said Tsering Tsomo, the executive director of TCHRD.
Responding to China’s alleged “guilty confessions” from Kyab, Tsering expressed doubts because China “uses torture extensively to extract confessions in politically-motivated cases.”
China continues to report various self immolations as “fabricated” and tries to blur the number of actual deaths which are due to the political unrest over their continued rule of Tibet.
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