Tibetan guide Kunchok Jinpa was sentenced to 21 years in prison for providing news and information to the Western media, and he died on February 6, 2021, after serving nearly eight years of his sentence for abuse in prison.
KunchokJinpa was an important source of information about Tibet for foreign media. Yet he died of suspected abuse after serving nearly eight years in prison.
Originally a tour guide, Kunchok Jinpa, 51, was arrested in 2013 for leaking information to foreign media about protests in his Home town of Driru. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison on charges of “revealing state secrets.
On February 6, Gonchozinpa, who had served nearly eight years of his sentence, died in prison in Lhasa from suspected abuse, a news that continues to attract international attention.
In a statement issued on February 24 by the East Asia office of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), CEO Ai Wei-ang said, “The Chinese government is solely responsible for the death of Gonchozinpa, who was imprisoned, abused, and likely tortured for simply sharing information with the media.”
Ai Weiang called on the international community to “put further pressure on Beijing to secure the early release of all imprisoned freedom of the press fighters.”
In a written statement, Ai also mentioned that Nobel Peace Prize laureate and RSF Press Freedom Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and dissident blogger Yang Tongyan, who also served prison sentences, died in 2017 after being abused in prison.
Sophie Richardson, director of New York-based Human Rights Watch’s China division, said Feb. 16 that “the death of Gonzha Tsupa is another grim case of mistreated Tibetans who have died from wrongful imprisonment,” and that “[t]he Chinese Communist authorities are notorious for arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment and those responsible for the deaths of detainees should be held legally accountable.”
In Reporters Without Borders’ 2020 Press Freedom Index, China ranked 177th out of 180 countries, with the most journalists detained worldwide. The organization says at least 121 journalists remain imprisoned in China, and their current situation often carries a risk to their lives.
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