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Six Tibetans were given three to 12 years in prison by a county court in Kannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province on January 31, 2013.
Photo: english.cntv.cn

A Chinese court in Siling, eastern Tibet has dealt harshly with three Tibetans connected with the rising wave of self-immolation protests inside Tibet. The court sentenced Doptrug, 51, to ten years imprisonment, Ugyen Dorjee, 40, to 21 months, and Choekyab to 18 months.

The three took part in a protest last December demanding the body of Lobsang Gendun, a 29 year-old monk of the Penag Kadak Troedreling Monastery in the Seley Thang region who set himself on fire on December 3 last year, in protest over China’s continued occupation of Tibet.

China has declared the self-immolation protests “criminal” and has sentenced several people to imprisonment on charges of “intentional homicide”. Tibetans have been barred from offering prayers or showing any form of solidarity with the families of self-immolators. There have been threats to cancel development funds in village where self-immolations have taken place.

Tsultrim Kalsang, a 25 year old monk from Tawu, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Earlier this month, on July 12, Tsultrim Kalsang, a 25 year-old monk from Nyatso Zikar monastery in the Dzatoe region of Tridu was sentenced to ten years imprisonment by an Intermediate People’s Court in Siling city for “intentional homicide”.  Tsultrim Kalsang had been detained earlier on September 1, 2012 in a major raid in which sixty vehicles with armed Chinese police had entered the monastery and confiscated computers and CDs, and arrested Kalsang along with four other monks.

In January, a 40 year-old monk Lobsang Konchok, from Ngaba Kirti monastery was sentenced to death with a two-year, and Lobsang Tsering, 31 to ten years imprisonment on similar charges.

Such heavy handed sentences by the Chinese authorities have evoked protests by various governments and human rights groups, including the New York based Human Rights Watch, which said the prosecutions were “utterly without credibility’” and stated that the these “incitement” cases by the Chinese government was “compounding the tragedy” of the self-immolation protests.