(TibetanReview.net, Nov04’26) – Chinese police in Tibet’s capital Lhasa have on Oct 26 severely beaten the sister of a prominent jailed Tibetan businessman, leaving her with severe internal injuries and broken bones, after she staged yet another protest with appeals for justice for him. The brother, Dorje Tashi, has long continued to be held incommunicado and without access to his family and lawyers in what is seen as a politically motivated persecution.
Gonpo Kyi (also known as Gonmo Kyi, according to tibetwatch.org) staged her latest protest outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) Higher People’s Court. She held a portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping alongside a two-point petition demanding a fair retrial for Dorje Tashi, said Washington-based Tibet advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet (savetibet.org) Nov 3.
The group cited sources close to the family as saying she had previously staged multiple similar protests outside the same court in June and August this year and over the past four years. And the Chinese police routinely assaulted, dragged, and beat her, leaving her with a broken arm, fractured bones, as well as internal bleeding and chronic health issues.
The group posted a video footage, stated to have been provided by a source named Sakar Tashi who resides in Belgium, showing Gonpo Kyi seeking to present her petition during the peaceful protest. The appeal asks that Dorje Tashi’s defence lawyers be given full legal access her brother’s case files with a view to review them, and a fair public retrial after the unjust verdict passed against him. “Dorje Tashi is innocent,” the petition is stated to conclude.
Sakar Tashi has said Gonpo Kyi had carried out dozens of protests demanding a fair hearing, only to be routinely detained, with her phones being confiscated, its footages and photos being deleted, preventing information about the case and her protests from reaching the outside world.
The Oct 26 protest was stated to have been recorded by Gonpo Kyi’s husband, Choekyong, who reportedly told the police ordering him to stop the filming: “I will keep filming. Dorje Tashi’s case is not being handled according to the constitution. If things were conducted according to the law, we wouldn’t need to record anything. You have bought off all the doctors in the hospital, and everyone around here is an undercover tail following us. Today is October 26. Police vehicles are circling right now, preparing to detain us again.”
Dorje Tashi’s elder brother, Dorje Tseten, is also stated to be under 24-hour surveillance, with plainclothes agents trailing him wherever he goes, and the authorities routinely forcing him out of Lhasa to remote locations during politically sensitive periods.
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The report said Dorje Tashi, a well-known former philanthropist and owner of the luxury Yak Hotel in Lhasa, was initially detained by authorities shortly after the 2008 mass protests that hit much of the Tibetan Plateau region. Authorities reportedly accused him of providing covert support to protesters and making offerings to the Dalai Lama, holding him in secret incommunicado detention for eight months.
On May 17, 2010, the Lhasa Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Dorje Tashi to life imprisonment in a secret trial, holding him guilty on a fake charge of “loan fraud” involving 1.5 million yuan, without any trappings of a fair trial and due process.
The court was also stated to have sentenced his brother Dorje Tseten to six years in prison, to be served in Drapchi Prison (Tibet Autonomous Region Prison), the largest prison in Tibet, notorious for housing political prisoners convicted of state security offences.
Gonmo Kyi has been campaigning for her brother’s release for more than three years, highlighting years of systematic denial of visitation rights for the family and his lawyers, contravening Chinese regulations, said tibetwatch.org Nov 4.
It cited her as saying she has not even been allowed to write a letter to her 52-year old borther, who was among Tibet’s most prominent entrepreneurs. He was, in fact, a Communist Party member and had even received awards from the Party before his arrest.
Tibetwatch.org said Dorje Tashi is also being held in Drapchi.
Referring to the unfairness of Dorje Tashi’s sentencing, Tibetwatch.org noted thatfour months earlier, the same judges had imposed a 15-year sentence on two persons convicted for the same offence in a case involving an amount 40 times greater than that in his case.
It said at least one top TAR official was stated to be involved in fabricating the loan fraud charge against Dorje Tashi.