China: Tibetan website founder jailed after closed door trial

THE founder of a Tibetan literary website was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of disclosing state secrets, an overseas monitoring group said on Tuesday.

Kunchok Tsephel, 39, was convicted and sentenced Nov 12 after a closed-door trial at the Intermediate People's Court of Gannan prefecture in south-western Gansu province, according to reports from Tibet received by Tibetan exiles, said the International Campaign for Tibet, a Washington DC-based advocacy group.

Some of the charges are believed to be related to content posted on his influential website, Chodme, or Butter-Lamp, which promotes Tibetan culture, and also for passing on information about last year's anti-government protests.

Kunchok Tsephel, who has been detained by police since Feb 26, had also worked in a Chinese government environmental department.

His family, who did not know where he had been held for nine months, was summoned last Thursday to hear the verdict, the ICT group said.

Kunchok Tsephel had founded his website on Tibetan art and literature in 2005 along with a fellow poet. Authorities have shut it down several times over the past few years.

LNK

China: Tibetan website founder jailed after closed door trial

China: Tibetan website founder jailed after closed door trial

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