Tibetan librarian sentenced in secret after a year of detention
Lobsang Thabkey handed three years prison sentence, remains without access to family visits
A former librarian of the renowned Kirti Monastery has been sentenced in a secret trial to three years in prison after being held in incommunicado detention for a year.
Tibet Watch learned that the Buddhist monk Lobsang Thabkey, 54, is currently serving his prison term in Deyang Prison in Sichuan Province in eastern Tibet. His family has not been allowed to visit him, nor have they been informed about the trial, the court which handed him the prison sentence, or his current health condition.
Lobsang was charged with “inciting separatism” after being arrested in June 2023 for allegedly publishing some books published by exile-based Tibetan monasteries in south India, and accused of contacting Tibetans living in exile.
“Kirti Monastery and the family knew that Lobsang Thabkey was arrested last year but they didn’t know that he was arbitrarily detained. Recently, his family found out that Thabkey had already been sentenced to three years in prison following a secret trial. He was charged with “inciting separatism” and is in Sichuan’s Deyang Prison, ” a source told Tibet Watch.
Lobsang Thabkey (བློ་བཟང་ཐབས་མཁས།) hails from No.3 village of Meruma township (རྨེའུ་རུ་མ་རུ་ཆེན་གསུམ་པ།) in Ngaba County. His father’s name is Katson (ཁ་བརྩོན།) and his mother’s name is Shoka (ཞོ་ཀ།).
Information supplied by Tibet Watch
