(TibetanReview.net, Apr29’22) – Publicity-shy local Chinese authorities have released a Tibetan school teacher they had arrested at the beginning of August last year, sneaking her back to her home in the night of Apr 24. They had accused her of inciting separatism for being upset with the forced official closing down of a Tibetan language and culture school where she was a teacher.
Rinchen Kyi, 42, was released on Apr 24 at about 8:00 pm local time and taken to her family home in Qinghai Province’s Darlag (Chinese: Dali) county, Golog (Guoluo) prefecture, without any advance notice to her family, the Tibetan Service of rfa.org Apr 28 cited an exile Tibetan with knowledge of the development as saying.
Two cars carrying security personnel were reported to have arrived that evening at Kyi’s family home. Neighbours who came out to see what was happening saw Kyi getting out of one of the cars and immediately entering her home.
“Police prevented people from getting too close to her, so no one was able to learn where she had been held all this time,” the source was reported to have added.
Kyi was a teacher at the Golog Sengdruk Taktse School in Darlag when it was closed on Jul 8, 2021 amid a regionwide clampdown on schools offering instruction in Tibetan language.
When the authorities learnt that she was deeply upset by the development, which affected her daily routine, they took her to a hospital on Aug 1, calling it a case of mental illness. She was later charged with inciting separatism and kept at home under an arrest order.
Afterwards she was taken to the provincial capital Xining, from where she disappeared.