China convicts Tibetan of subversion

BEIJING: A court in China’s remote west has found a Tibetan nomad guilty of subversion and separatism, a human rights group said on Friday, denouncing the charges as baseless and urging his release.

Ronggyal Adrak was convicted in Sichuan province for openly demanding religious freedom and urging authorities to allow the exiled Dalai Lama to visit China, and a sentence is likely soon, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said. Adrak comes from Ganzi Prefecture, a mountain-bound area dominated by ethnic Tibetan herders that neighbours the Tibet Autonomous Region. Many of Ganzi’s herders see themselves as members of a wider Tibetan community spanning the border and revere the Dalai Lama as the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

Adrak was arrested in August at a horse-riding festival in Litang, a town approaching the border with Tibet. Radio Free Asia reported scores of Tibetans were arrested at the festival after demonstrating for greater religious freedom and the Dalai Lama’s return. Adrak climbed a stage and called for the return of the Dalai Lama and release of two Tibetan Buddhist monks in jail on charges - disputed by Tibetan rights groups - of helping to set off bombs in Sichuan in 2004, Human Rights Watch said.

It described Adrak, convicted on Oct 29, as a victim of China’s harsh controls on Tibetans.

“This kind of repression also risks exacerbating ethnic tensions in the run-up to the Olympics,” Brad Adams, the Asia director of the group, said in an emailed statement. reuters