[Exile groups said that Mr. Runggye Adak, who is believed to be
60 or 61, was released
Friday from a prison in Sichuan Province, far from the high
grasslands of his home county, Litang, where in 2007 he had publicly
called for the return of the Dalai Lama,
the 80-year-old spiritual leader of the Tibetans who is reviled by China’s
leaders.]
By Edward Wong
BEIJING — A Tibetan man who was
imprisoned for eight years after calling for the Dalai Lama’s
return to Tibet at
a popular festival has been released, according to overseas Tibet advocacy
groups.
The man, Runggye Adak, is a former nomad and father of 11 who
since his imprisonment had become an important symbol to Tibetans of resistance
to restrictive official policies in Tibetan areas of western China.
Exile groups said that Mr. Runggye Adak, who is believed to be
60 or 61, was released
Friday from a prison in Sichuan Province, far from the high
grasslands of his home county, Litang, where in 2007 he had publicly
called for the return of the Dalai Lama,
the 80-year-old spiritual leader of the Tibetans who is reviled by China’s
leaders.
Mr. Runggye Adak did that at the Litang Horse Festival, a
well-known event that once drew thousands of nomads, Buddhist monks, nuns,
pilgrims and tourists to Litang every August. Since Mr. Runggye Adak’s protest,
and a widespread Tibetan uprising in
2008, officials have canceled the festival every year.
It was canceled again this summer, after people in the area and
in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, protested the death of another
prominent Tibetan political prisoner, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, 65. Mr. Tenzin
Delek, who was from the Litang area and was one of the most prominent Tibetan
religious leaders in prison, died last month under mysterious
circumstances while serving a life sentence for “terrorism and inciting
separatism.” He was arrested in 2002.
The authorities quickly cremated Mr. Tenzin Delek’s body rather
than turn it over to relatives to perform traditional Buddhist funeral rites.
Security officials also detained a sister and a
niece of the deceased rinpoche, according to Students for a
Free Tibet, which is based overseas. The group said Saturday that the two women
were released late Thursday.
China’s security clampdown in the vast Tibetan areas increased
greatly after the 2008 unrest and has continued at a severe level since then.
The intervening years have seen more than 140
self-immolations by Tibetans, most of them intended as protests
against what most Tibetans call the occupation of their homeland.
Though the Litang Horse Festival has not been held since 2007, a
few similar events are held on the Tibetan plateau with official approval. One,
a three-day horse festival organized by the local government of the Tibetan
area of Gyegudo, known in Chinese as Yushu, ended Monday. Officials said the
festival in Gyegudo, which has been rebuilt since
a 2010 earthquake,
had been put on to show the outside world the culture of Kham, the region of
eastern Tibet that includes Litang.
Days before the festival, a young
monk, Sonam Topgyal, set himself on fire in the middle of Gyegudo.
At the last Litang Horse Festival, in 2007, Mr. Runggye Adak,
the former nomad, said in a speech to a large
crowd that the Dalai Lama was the one person Tibetans truly
needed. He also said that “although we can move our bodies, we cannot express
what is in our hearts,” according to a translation by the International
Campaign for Tibet. Chinese officials generally do not tolerate public displays
of the Dalai Lama’s picture, let alone speeches calling for his return.
On Friday, Mr. Runggye Adak was taken straight to his home in
Litang by the authorities, having completed his eight-year prison sentence,
according to a report by the International Campaign for Tibet, based in
Washington.
Last year, Mr. Runggye Adak carried out a 33-day hunger strike
in prison to protest the authorities’ treatment of political prisoners,
according to two Tibetans living in India, including Lobsang Jamyang, a monk
who is Mr. Runggye Adak’s eldest son. Mr. Runggye Adak was taken to a hospital
after his hunger strike, Mr. Lobsang Jamyang said last year in an interview.
Mr. Runggye Adak was held in Mianyang Prison, which is north of
Chengdu, in low-lying hills that were the site of the devastating Sichuan
earthquake of 2008. As of 2010, there were 42 Tibetan prisoners in that prison,
according to Adig Tseten, a member of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile in
Dharamsala, India, and a relative of Mr. Runggye Adak.
Some of those 42 prisoners have since been released, but others
are still being held. Mr. Adig Tseten said there had consistently been 40 or
more Tibetan prisoners in Mianyang for years.
