Kunchok Tsephel
Blog: http://www.tibetcm.com/Arrested on 26 Feb 2009
Other arrests: Kunchok Tsephel had undergone an earlier period of detention in 1995 linked to suspicion of involvement in political activities. He was tortured and interrogated but protested his innocence and was released without charge after two months.
Campaign Site: http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/3326/prmID/172
On 16 November, 2009, International Campaign for Tibet reported that internet writer, editor and an official in a Chinese government environmental department had been sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of disclosing state secrets.
Some of the charges are believed to relate to content on his website, Chodme (‘Butter-Lamp’, www.tibetcm.com), which aims to protect Tibetan culture, and passing on information about last year’s protests in Tibet.
Thirty-nine year old Kunchok Tsephel was detained in the early hours of the morning on February 26, 2009. His house was ransacked and his computer, camera and mobile phone seized. His family had no idea where he was until last week they were summoned to court on November 12 to hear the verdict of 15 years imprisonment after a closed-door trial at the Intermediate People’s Court of Kanlho (Chinese: Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu province.
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