Dorjee Tashi
Photo: ICT
Dorjee Tashi, the imprisoned Tibetan businessman and philanthropist who is in critical health following years of torture while in prison has documented the treatment he received during his pre-trial detention. The International Campaign for Tibet has published his testimony which details 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. 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.
The ICT has 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.”
Dorjee has steadfastly denied any political involvement throughout the years of his detention. He was born in 1973, and once recognised as one of the “ten outstanding youth in Tibet” by the Chinese government; he became a member of the Communist Party of China in 2003. His philanthropy work had been widely praised by the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region as an outstanding contribution to poverty alleviation and economic development in Tibet.
His company Tibet Manasarovar Group owned a chain of luxury hotels in Tibet, including the famous Yak Hotel in Lhasa and he is involved in other businesses. He has received multiple awards, including from the Chinese Communist Party and the government of the TAR, 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.
He was arrested following the 2008 protests for allegedly providing covert support to Tibetan protesters and for alleged connections with the exile Tibetan community. The political allegations were dropped but he was indicted for “loan fraud” and sentenced to life in prison with deprivation of political rights.
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