Tanak Jigme Sangpo, 74, arrived in Chicago from Beijing on Saturday afternoon in "pretty good health" despite serious high blood pressure and coronary disease, said John Kamm, president of the San Francisco-based Duihua Foundation. He said Jigme Sangpo was "frail but mentally sharp."

Kamm attributed the release to China's post-September 11 desire to bolster relations with Washington.

"I'm not at all convinced that the policy toward Tibet is changing. But I think they want to further relations with the United States and see this as a way of doing it," he said in a telephone interview.

Calls to China's Foreign Ministry weren't immediately answered Sunday morning.

By all accounts China's longest-serving political prisoner, Jigme Sangpo was arrested in September 1983 and sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of "counterrevolutionary incitement and propaganda" for campaigning against Chinese rule in Tibet, according to Kamm.

His sentence was extended twice after that and had been due to expire on September 3, 2011, when he would be in his mid-80s. Prison authorities exempted him from physical labor several years ago because of his age, Kamm said.

In April, Jigme Sangpo was released from Lhasa's Drapchi Prison into the custody of his niece in Lhasa, a move initially believed to be a release. But Kamm said he was kept under house arrest.

Jigme Sangpo was also one of five prisoners cited by U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt during a January 21 speech in Hong Kong.

The London-based Tibet Information Network, a monitoring group, said Jigme Sangpo was the sixth Tibetan prisoner released since January, including four "singing nuns," a group of women punished for recording pro-independence songs in prison. The most recent, Ngawang Choezom, was freed June 21.

"It seems the Chinese authorities are reassessing the necessity of continuing to hold people in prisons for long periods if they've been involved in peaceful forms of protest," said Kate Saunders, network spokeswoman.

Kamm, who met with Jigme Sangpo in Lhasa last month, said health may have been another factor in the release. "He needs medical treatment that they can't provide," Kamm said.

He said Jigme Sangpo was en route to Washington, where he will live with a relative and begin medical treatment. The Tibetan's plane ride to the United States was "very emotional," Kamm said.

China removed all reference to counterrevolutionary crimes from its legal code in 1997 after repeated international complaints that the term was too vague. Today, the most common charge is subversion, which is used in similar cases.

Kamm said figures given to him by the Chinese government say there are 110 prisoners in Tibet serving sentences on charges of "endangering state security." Kamm started the Duihua Foundation after unsuccessfully trying to persuade U.S. businesses to lobby China for prisoner releases. He has been involved in the release of several political prisoners. Duihua means "dialogue" in Mandarin Chinese.

[ Homepage ] [ NewsRoom ]



This site is maintained and updated by The Office of Tibet, the official agency of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in London. This Web page may be linked to any other Web sites. Contents may not be altered.
Last updated: 15-July-2002