By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, May 6: A Tibetan anti-corruption activist and community leader, A-nya Sengdra’s second appeal at the Golok Intermediate People’s Court has been postponed indefinitely, Dharamshala based rights group, Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said Monday. TCHRD expressed concerns over the “uncertainty” of the case of activist A-nya Sengdra and his associates and called on the Chinese authorities to release them immediately without conditions.
A-nya Sengdra was sentenced to seven years and his associates to different prison terms on Dec. 6, 2019 for “gathering people to disturb public order” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. He was detained on Sept. 4, 2018, from a highway intersection in Golok by PSB officers and taken to the detention center in Drotsang County, Tsoshar Prefecture.
TCHRD said the hearing for the appeal which was scheduled at 9.30 am on Apr. 27 was postponed because “one of the judges had suddenly taken ill.”
The rights group remarked that the indefinite postponement “signals a possible attempt by the authorities to drag their feet on the case leaving no possibility to obtain justice for Sengdra and his associates.” It called for an unconditional release of A-nya Sengdra and his associates, Soedung, Chinthrun, A-shol, Do Sang, Wangyal, Gyaltsen, Ngogbey, Orgyen Tsering, and Wangchen from illegal imprisonment. TCHRD said that they are victims of Chinese government’s corrupt practices where the law has been used as a “weapon to crush peaceful dissent and criticisms against the Party-state.”
Vaguely worded charges including ‘provoking trouble’ under Article 293 of Chinese Criminal Law has been used frequently since Xi Jinping’s presidency for punishing human rights defenders and activists who are critical of the government policies. “Criminalising Mr Sengdra’s heroic campaigns against corruption only exposes the hollowness and hypocrisy of the current Chinese leadership’s so-called war on corruption,” said Tsering Tsomo, Executive director of TCHRD, earlier in April.
