Tibetan monk sentenced following secret trial
Jampa Choepel was arrested at his monastery after an online post about Dalai Lama, sentenced to a year and half in prison
A Tibetan monk was sentenced to one and a half years in prison in August following a secret trial.
Prior to his trial, Jampa Choepel spent half a year in arbitrary detention.
Jampa was arrested in March at Penkarthang Monastery in Rebkong County, eastern Tibet. On 10 March, Tibetan Uprising Day, he had published a post about the teachings of the Dalai Lama on the background of his WeChat account.
The trial took place in August, where Jampa Choepel was sentenced to one and a half years in prison by the Rebkong County People’s Court.
Following inquiries by his family, the county police had informed them that around 22 September, Jampa Choepel had been transferred from the prison in the area of Kurathang (གུ་ར་ཐང་།) in Rebkong to another prison in Xining City.
Taking the time Jampa Choepel has spent in arbitrary detention, he still has one year of his prison sentence to serve. His family is known to have been denied visits and kept under heavy surveillance.
Jampa Choephel (བྱམས་པ་ཆོས་འཕེལ།) hails from Malpa village (སྨད་པ་སྡེ་བ།) in Rebkong. In 1986, he came to India and joined the Buddhist Dialectic school (མཚན་ཉིད་གྲྭ་ཚང་།) in Dharamsala. In 1996, Choephel returned to Tibet and enrolled in Penkarthang Monastery (སྤེན་དཀར་ཐང་དགོན་པ།) in Rebkong where he taught calligraphy and English language. Since his return to Tibet, he is known to have been under police surveillance.
Information supplied by Tibet Watch
