Tibetan lama Tenzin Delek Rinpoche dies in Chinese prison

[webfact]

Tibetan lama Tenzin Delek Rinpoche dies in Chinese prison
LOUISE WATT, Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — Tibetan lama Tenzin Delek Rinpoche has died in prison 13 years into serving a sentence for what human rights groups say were false charges that he was involved in a bombing in a public park. He was 65.

Relatives were informed of the death Sunday, New York-based Students for a Free Tibet said Monday. Police in Sichuan province in southwestern China confirmed the death but declined to give further details.

Tenzin Delek was arrested in 2002 in relation to an April 3, 2002, blast in Chengdu city that injured three people. He was sentenced to death on charges of terror and incitement of separatism a few months later. His death sentence was commuted to life in prison in 2005, and later to 20 years' imprisonment. He continued to maintain his innocence.

He was being held in a prison in Dazhu county in Sichuan province, which borders the Tibetan region.

A woman from the Public Security Bureau in Dazhu confirmed that Tenzin Delek died Sunday. She refused to identify herself.

Students for a Free Tibet said his family members had been informed by police in Chengdu city, the capital of Sichuan province, on Sunday, but were not told how he died.

Last year, they had applied for medical parole for him on the grounds that he suffered from a heart condition, high blood pressure, dizzy spells and problems with his legs that had caused him to fall on a number of occasions.

Born in 1950 in a Tibetan area of Sichuan, Tenzin Delek stayed in India from 1982 to 1987 to study under the Dalai Lama.

During that time, the Dalai Lama recognized Tenzin Delek as a tulku, or a reincarnated lama.

In 1987 he returned to China, where he worked to establish monasteries, health clinics, small schools and orphanages, rising in prominence.

Human rights groups have said his relationship with Chinese officials took a turn for the worse when he rolled back attempts to clear forests and because of his support for the Dalai Lama, who is considered a separatist by the government.

In India, exiled Tibetans marched Monday in New Delhi and in Dharmsala, where the Dalai Lama has lived since fleeing Tibet in 1959, carrying placards reading, "We want justice," and "Murdered in Prison."

His family called for authorities to release his body.

"Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was an innocent monk who suffered over 13 years of unjust imprisonment, torture and abuse in a Chinese prison for simply advocating for the rights and well-being of his people and for expressing his devotion to His Holiness the Dalai Lama," his India-based cousin, Geshe Nyima, said in a statement released by Students for a Free Tibet.

"The Chinese government must immediately release his body so that our family and community may perform the last Buddhist religious rites," the statement said.

The U.S. State Department said it was saddened to learn of the death of the political prisoner.

"The United States had consistently urged China to release Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, most recently out of concern for his health," department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. "We hope Chinese authorities will investigate and make public the circumstances surrounding his death."
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Associated Press writer Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-07-14

[geriatrickid]

And there are people still claiming the Uighurs are jihadis.

China has zero respect for anything non Han and non party line.

[sprq]

If China does replace the US as world policeman, big chief, top dog, etc, a lot of us are going to say, "Come back Washington, all is forgiven".

[h90]

And there are people still claiming the Uighurs are jihadis.

China has zero respect for anything non Han and non party line.

http://thetruthoftibet.blogspot.com/

http://newschecker.blogspot.com/2007/10/dalai-lama-hero-in-western-world.html

The hero of the west webpage is blocked in China to not further anger the people. The Dalai Lama and his other Lamas who call a normal school education a cultural genocide because people won't believe in daemons anymore have no place on this planet. The same for Jihadis. If you have a crazy religious opinion...homophob, suppressing women, etc you should have freedom of speech but when it goes to killing others there should be given no mercy.

[Lissos]

Old Tibet was cool if you were nobility. It was bloody freezing if you were not. At least, that is what I came to after initial years of encountering Free Tibet kind of culture in places like McCleod Ganj and Ladakh in India. It was once I started doing my own reading, that balance came in. By balance I mean, the simplistic - "Cuddly sweet Tibetans / Evil Devil Chinese" notion gets undermined. One of the game changing books for me was - "Tibet,Tibet" by Patrick French, someone was also once heavily swayed by the Free Tibet romantic / nostalgic spin about Pre-Maoist Tibet.

If I remember rightly, he was a member of it at one time but saw things under the facade. It was this that moved me to question a lot of what I'd been exposed to along the way during travels, including an absolute shed load of Dawah (I now know) from Muslims I encountered, about Islam. It also became employed when it came to things like Palestinian Nationalism / BDS etc etc.

None of this 'justifies' what happened to Tibet, but it does (or should) make people loom deeper at the bandwagons they leap upon, as there can be all sorts of 'underlying' agendas to these organisations, hiding under a very attractive facade. Nobody can say the Chinese did things out of the goodness of their hearts, but neither is Free Tibet and similar, without hidden malice.

[SOTIRIOS]

.......shameful.....

...they used to have a spiritual past.....

[Credo]

So actually the Chinese invading Tibet was a good thing? Saving those Tibetans from themselves? It seems that some people seem to think it's a good idea sometimes and not so good at other times. Strange.

[Kannikapor88]

Chinese Mao aholes ...

[Lissos]

So actually the Chinese invading Tibet was a good thing? Saving those Tibetans from themselves?

Who implied that?