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Dorjee Tashi

A campaign for the release of Dorjee Tashi, the Tibetan businessman currently serving a life sentence for “loan fraud”, has been launched by his family. Once considered the richest man in Tibet, Dorjee Tashi was arrested in July 2008 in the wake of the mass Tibetan protests that took place that spring, and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment in 2010. His conviction for “loan fraud” came after attempts to frame him as a “secessionist” failed.

His family initially hoped to secure his release by maintaining a low profile and have persevered for over ten years through China’s judicial mechanisms; they have now launched an open advocacy campaign for justice for him.

The International Campaign for Tibet reports that in an open letter to the authorities published by the Rights Network Group last month, Dorjee Tseten, Dorjee Tashi’s older brother, argues that powerful leaders have distorted facts under the pretext of politics to frame his younger brother. Dorjee Tashi’s elder sister Gonpo Kyi staged sit-ins in front of the People’s Court in Lhasa in June this year, demanding justice for her brother.

The United States and the European Union have raised concerns about his detention. In its statement during the recently concluded 51st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the European Union called for his immediate and unconditional release, among others. The United States recognised the detention of Dorjee Tashi in its 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

Dorjee Tashi’s family have pinpointed the network of corrupt authorities who framed him, tortured him and misused the judicial system to falsely convict him, but to no avail despite Chinese President Xi Jinping’s public recognition of corruption as a “deep-seated problem” and his stated intention to “come down hard on corruption”.

Dorjee Tashi was a successful businessman and member of the Chinese Communist Party with a chain of luxury hotels to his name and real estate companies in Tibet. He was a philanthropist, praised by the government of his prefecture and the Shigatse (Rikaze) Communist Youth League for his social welfare projects and outstanding contribution to poverty alleviation and economic development in Tibet. He received multiple awards, including from the Chinese Communist Party and the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region, for his business and philanthropy. His social welfare undertakings included helping and providing cash donations to the widowed, the elderly and the children of poor workers, and mobilising funds and volunteers during earthquakes and floods in Shigatse.

Dorjee Tashi’s sister

However, he did not comply with requests for favours from corrupt government leaders who then framed him as a “secessionist” for his alleged covert support to Tibetans protesting in the 2008 uprising. He denied any political involvement, even as he was being tortured, the political allegations were dropped and he was charged with “loan fraud”. Human rights lawyers in Beijing were barred from pursuing his case.

Dorjee Tashi’s brother Dorjee Tseten has named the corrupt leaders who framed Dorjee as Norbu Dhondup, former president of the Tibet Autonomous Region Higher People’s Court, Yang Guangming, former deputy director of the TAR Public Security Department and Dorjee, former deputy director of the Shigatse (Rikaze) Public Security Bureau.

Dorjee’s sister Gontey has held peaceful sit-in protests in front of the People’s Court in Lhasa, in her video statement she said that her brother is innocent and that their loan had been paid back in full, with interest, and narrating the history of their appeals and statements made on Dorjee’s behalf, and the authorities’ failure to act.

Dorji Tashi’s sister protesting in Lhasa

While in prison, Dorjee Tashi has been subject to years of torture. The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) has published his testimony which documents beatings with electric batons, being cuffed to an iron bar and hung in the air, simulation of suffocation, pouring hot chili fluid through his nostrils and sleep deprivation, leaving him in poor health. The testimony identifies individuals directly responsible for carrying out acts of torture and corresponds to other reports on the use of torture in Tibet and to findings of independent international human rights experts. Last year the ICT called on the international community, governments and United Nations human rights experts to urgently raise Dorjee Tashi’s case with the government of China, saying his life is in imminent danger while he is serving a sentence that has been handed down in an unfair trial with credible reports of torture and ill-treatment. “Dorjee Tashi is a victim of the lawlessness in Tibet where merely standing out is enough to get a Tibetan persecuted. That is unacceptable.”