By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, April 25: The London-based rights group Free Tibet on Monday said that Rinchen Kyi, a middle-school teacher from Golog who was arrested last year for “inciting separatism” was released after eight months in prison. She was secretly returned home by police at 8pm local time on Sunday 24 April, according to the group.
Her arrest came a month after the closure of Sengdruk Taktse Middle School, where she taught the children in Tibetan language. It was reported that the government decision deeply affected her well-being. Rinchen was one of the longest-serving teachers in the school co-founded by Khandrul Jigme Kunsang Gyaltsen who had worked with education for destitute, orphaned and economically challenged families.
“Rinchen Kyi’s release came as a surprise, not least because China has consistently had a conviction rate of over 99 percent and releases of Tibetan political detainees are particularly rare,” Free Tibet said, adding that all her locations in the last eight months of detention were intentionally kept secret by the authorities.
Richen is one of the three Tibetans who were highlighted in a communiqué sent to Beijing by a group of six UN human rights experts in February. The appeal letter addressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded legal status and whereabouts of the three detainees. The letter sent months ago was only made available to the public last week.
“Without expressing at this stage an opinion on the facts of this case and on whether the arrest and detention of Mr. Lobsang Lhundup, Mr. Lhundrup Drakpa and Ms. Rinchen Kyi are arbitrary or not, we would like to appeal to take all necessary measures to guarantee their right not to be deprived arbitrarily of liberty and to fair proceedings before an independent and impartial tribunal, in accordance with articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” the joint letter by six UN officials read.
With Rinchen’s release, the focus shifts to the other two detainees who are currently serving sentences drawn in the past two years for similarly vague charges. Writer Dhi Lhaden was sentenced to four years on the charges of “creating disorder among the public” in June 2021, whereas musician and singer Lhundrup Drakpa was sentenced to six years in prison in 2020 for expressing discontent with the communist government in a song named ‘Black Hat’.
