Monk accused of distributing Dalai Lama teachings released from prison
Trinley was released before the end of a five-year jail term, but is being kept under close surveillance and has not been allowed to return to his monastery.
A Tibetan monk in his twenties from Kirti Monastery has been released from Mianyang prison after five years. Trinley, who was pursuing advanced religious studies, had been accused of distributing written materials including teachings of the Dalai Lama. He underwent prolonged detention and interrogation without due process, including before his most recent prison term, with no explanation of his whereabouts to his family.
Trinley, from the village of Meruma (Mai’erma) in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba), Sichuan (the Tibetan area of Amdo), was arrested on 1 July 2021 amid official ceremonies across the PRC, including in Tibet, to celebrate the centenary anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. He was released before the end of a five-year jail term, but is being kept under close surveillance and has not been allowed to return to his monastery.
Ngaba County police only informed Trinley’s father of the sentencing two months after his sudden disappearance, his father has since died due to an illness while Trinley was still in prison.
Trinley’s family had endured extreme distress even before his sentencing in 2021. The county police had taken Trinley into custody several times, accusing him of publishing and distributing teachings of the Dalai Lama. Each time, he had been interrogated and detained for several months across different police stations and detention centres in Ngaba county. He had also been deprived of his official identity documents and travel cards.
After his most recent arrest, a handwritten note was found on a bookshelf at his residence in Kirti Monastery that read “Although Tsenpo has departed in the sky, his decree will never be violated” (བཙན་པོ་དགུང་དུ་གཤེགས་གྱུར་ཀྱང་། དེ་ཡི་བཀའ་ལ་འགལ་མི་བྱ།). ‘Tsenpo’, meaning ‘emperor’ in Tibetan, is often used by Tibetans to refer to the spirit and strength of Tibetan identity being indomitable like the Tibetan empire.
This sentiment is echoed in a 2023 arrest, where a Tibetan singer called Palden was detained and interrogated after performing the song ‘Messenger of [Tibetan] empire’ (བཙན་པོའི་ཕོ་ཉ།) online in December 2022. Following a secret trial in Golok (Chinese: Guoluo), Amdo – that was unusually expedited compared to previous trials – Palden was held incommunicado for three years in prison.
Kirti Monastery, in Ngaba, eastern Tibet, where Trinley was studying, is one of the most influential Gelug centres on the plateau, renowned for its monastic scholarship, teaching lineage and wide regional influence across Amdo. It became a focal point of international attention in 2009 when a wave of Tibetan self-immolations began there, marking a tragic and unprecedented form of protest that underscored the depth of political and religious repression in the region.
Information supplied by Tibet Watch.
