Death Penalty News

Kagyu Samye Ling monastery in Scotland China has sentenced two men to death for killing a British monk who founded Europe’s first Tibetan monastery, state media said. Chöje Akong Tulku Rinpoche, co-founder of Scotland’s Kagyu Samye Ling monastery near Langholm, in Dumfries and Galloway, was found dead with multiple stab wounds at his home in the south-western city of Chengdu in 2013. A court in the city sentenced two men, named in Chinese as Tudeng Gusang and Tsering Banjue, to death for the murders of Akong Rinpoche and two other men, while an accomplice was sentenced to three years in jail, the state-run China News Service reported late on Sunday. It cited authorities as saying that Gusang, who had worked at the Scottish monastery, and Banjue had stabbed Akong Rinpoche, his nephew and a driver to death in a dispute over a 2.7m yuan (£286,000) payment. The verdict, posted by the court on social media, said the murders were “brutal” and that the suspects would be “...

The Dalai Lama CHICAGO— The Dalai Lama praised Illinois for recently abolishing the death penalty during a talk Sunday, but the Tibetan spiritual leader steered clear of politically sensitive issues related to China. Comments by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate to more than 10,000 admirers at the University of Illinois at Chicago came after China angrily rebuked President Barack Obama for meeting with the Dalai Lama on Saturday. The only politics the 76-year-old touched on was the decision earlier this year by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn to sign legislation banning capital punishment. He praised Quinn, who briefly joined the Dalai Lama on stage. "This state abolished the death sentence," the Tibetan Buddhist monk said. "When I heard that, I immediately shook hands with the governor (before the event started) and said congratulations. ... I really appreciated it." Once on stage, dressed in crimson-red and gold robes, he gave Quinn a traditional blessing by placing a...

May 26, 2010: the Lhasa Intermediate People's Court in China sentenced Tibetan Sonam Tsering, 23, to a suspended death sentence, the India-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. Tsering, who was born in Ganzi, allegedly rioted and led others to riot in 2008 by setting cars and shops on fire and overturning police vehicles. The Center said Sonam Tsering is the seventh Tibetan so far to be sentenced to death for the riots, including two already executed. Source: Associated Press, May 26, 2010

London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International has flayed the blatant misuse of death penalty as a political weapon in several countries with China, Iran, Iraq and Sudan topping the list. In its annual report on capital punishment, Amnesty noted that despite an overwhelming majority favoring abolition of the practice, its extensive and politicized use continued. "Even as world opinion and practice shift inexorably towards abolition, the extensive and politicized use of the death penalty continues," it said. Asia, the Middle East and North Africa accounted for majority of executions with 714 people executed in 18 countries in 2009. Of these 366 people were executed in Iran, 120 in Iraq and 52 in the U.S. and the executions were carried out by "hanging, shooting, beheading, stoning, electrocution and lethal injection." Saudi Arabia and Iran were criticized for putting to death juvenile offenders in violation of international law. China is believed to h...

At least 3 Tibetans are said to have been executed in connection with an anti-Chinese uprising in 2008. Tibetan exiles and residents of the region say Chinese authorities have executed at least 3 people convicted of rioting during last year's widespread uprising against Chinese rule. These would be the 1st reported executions in connection with rioting that erupted in March 2008 in Lhasa. Capital punishment is administered only rarely in Tibet, experts say. A source in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) capital, Lhasa, identified 1 of the men executed as Lobsang Gyaltsen, age 22 or 23, from Lhasas Lubuk township. "His mother's name is Yudon-la and he has a stepfather. Their living conditions are extremely poor, and they are dependent on food assistance from Lhasa city committee," the source said. "He was executed for allegedly killing a Chinese national by setting a shop on fire in Lhasa. He was detained around March 14, 2008," the source said. Before his ex...

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has received confirmed information from reliable sources that Lobsang Gyaltsen, Loyak (pictured), Penkyi and an unnamed Tibetan were executed on Tuesday, 20 October 2009 under the supervision of the Lhasa Municipality Intermediate People’s Court for their alleged involvement in last year’s mass protest in the Tibetan capital. Further information is awaited. No information on their execution was reported anywhere in the Chinese state media. According to sources, the dead body of Lobsang Gyaltsen, from Lubug on the outskirt of Lhasa city, was handed over to his family and his dead body was later known to have been immersed in Kyichu River. There is no information on whether the defendants appealed their sentences to the Supreme People’s Court after Lhasa Municipal Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak to death on 8 April 2009. According to the Chinese official mouthpiece dated 8 April 2009, Lhasa Munici...

Tibetan exiles have reported the first executions of those convicted for rioting last year in Lhasa, with at least two people put to death in a rare implementation of capital punishment in the restive region. Two Tibetans convicted of arson and sentenced to death in April were executed on Tuesday morning in Lhasa, reported The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, which is based in the Indian town of Dharamsala — the home in exile of the Dalai Lama. It said that Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak had been sentenced to death for their part in setting fire to five shops in the Tibetan capital, killing seven people, in the riot that rocked Lhasa in March last year. Officials say that 21 people — including three Tibetan protesters — died in the violence, which embarrassed Beijing just as it was preparing to stage the Olympic Games and prompted a security crackdown across the Himalayan region. The body of Mr Gyaltsen had been returned to his family and then submitted to a river burial — a...

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- There appeared to be a dramatic change in plans in San Francisco Wednesday as the Olympic Torch disappeared from public view as its controversial run through the city got under way. Thousands of demonstrators were in the city to line a course that was shortened several times, a source involved in the planning of the event said. The torch was lit in a short ceremony at AT&T Park in front of hundreds of pro-Chinese supporters, who waved Chinese, American and Olympic flags. But from the park, the runners, accompanied by Chinese security forces, went into a security warehouse. Vehicles were seen leaving the building moments later. Mayor Gavin Newsom had said the route along the waterfront -- already cut from eight to six miles -- could be changed up to and even during the run itself. Read more>>>

OLYMPIA, Greece (CNN) -- A lone protester managed to breach the tight security during the Olympic torch lighting ceremony in Greece Monday. The man rushed behind the podium as China's Olympic chief was speaking. He tried to unfurl an unidentified banner, but was quickly apprehended by security who escorted him away. Meanwhile committee chief Liu Qi continued to make his speech in Chinese while the commotion went on behind him. The camera cut away from the scene until the protester had been removed. The torch was lit moments later as it began its epic began its 130-day, 137,000-kilo meters (85,000-miles) journey. China's human rights records has been under scrutiny from the international committee in the lead up to what promises to be one of the most controversial Olympic Games. Anti-China protests began in Tibet's main city, Lhasa, on March 10 and gradually escalated. Lhasa saw at least two days of violence and there have also been violent protests in provinces which border...

The Chinese army drove through the streets of Lhasa today parading dozens of Tibetan prisoners in handcuffs, their heads bowed, as troops stepped up their hunt for the rioters in house-to-house searches. As the midnight deadline approached for rioters to surrender, four trucks in convoy made a slow progress along main roads, with about 40 people, mostly young Tibetan men and women, standing with their wrists handcuffed behind their backs, witnesses said. A soldier stood behind each prisoner, a hand on the back of their neck to ensure their heads were bowed. Loudspeakers on the trucks broadcast calls to anyone who had taken part in the violent riots on Friday - in which Han Chinese and Hui Muslim were stabbed and beaten and shops and business set on fire - to turn themselves in. Read more>>> Source: The London Times

BEIJING — Violence erupted Friday morning in a busy market area of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, as Buddhist monks and other ethnic Tibetans clashed with Chinese security forces. Witnesses say angry Tibetan crowds burned shops, cars, military vehicles and at least one tourist bus. The chaotic scene was the latest, and most violent, confrontation in a series of protests that began on Monday and now represent a major challenge to the ruling Communist Party as it prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. Beijing is facing the most serious and prolonged demonstrations in the remote Himalayan region since the late 1980s, when it suppressed a rebellion there with lethal force that left scores and possibly hundreds of ethnic Tibetans dead. The leadership is clearly alarmed that a wave of negative publicity could disrupt its elaborate plans for the Olympics and its hopes that the games will showcase its rising influence and prosperity rather than domestic turmoil. More>>> ...