DHARAMSHALA, September 26: Jailed Tibetan monk Lama Jigme (aka Labrang Jigme, Jigme Gyatso and Akhu Jigme) has told Chinese police guards, in the presence of his brother, that he will gladly accept, even the death sentence, if found guilty.
“If you think that I am a criminal, send me to court for a trial. If I really committed a crime, well then I will gladly accept my sentence, even if it is the death sentence,” Lama Jigme was quoted as saying by his elder brother Sonam Tsering in an oral testimony published by prominent Tibetan blogger Woeser on August 12.
Lama Jigme, 46, an outspoken and respected monk from Amdo’s Labrang Monastery, is currently being held in Tsoe city, Kanlho after he was arrested on August 20, 2011, his fourth arrest in five years.
At the time of his arrest, police officers raided his room and reportedly seized around 30 portraits of the Dalai Lama, two computers and two laptops.
No information was available on Jigme until January this year when his arrest warrant was formally issued.
According to the arrest warrant dated January 1, Jigme was charged with engaging in activities aimed at “splitting” the country.
Since his arrest, Jigme has been allowed only one visit from his family, in November 2011, which lasted only more than ten minutes.
Sonam Tsering had brought Jigme his favourite food cooked by their mother, but upon seeing the Chinese police officers filming and taking pictures of their meeting, Jigme charged the Chinese authorities of “playing an old trick.”
“You want to publicise this visual material and then claim that Jigme is in a good state, that he is well taken care of and even allowed to meet his relatives, don’t you? I am telling you, I don’t need anyone bringing me food, I don’t need my brother to visit me, I also don’t want to live in a hotel,” Tsering recounted Jigme as telling the police.
“Yesterday, I said that I was not feeling well, so you invited a doctor to see me. You videotaped and photographed the whole examination process. But in the end, I did not even receive a single drop of medicine at all.”
Jigme further told the police officers that he “deeply reveres Tibetan traditions” and was “wholeheartedly determined to maintain them.”
“You say that we are not allowed to pray to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, but there are no Tibetans that don’t have faith in the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama,” Tsering’s testimony, translated into English by High Peaks Pure Earth, quotes his brother as saying.
The only real conversation that the two brothers had before the “angry” policemen turned Tsering back with the food was when Jigme told him to “Go lodge an appeal for me… Find me a good lawyer and sue these policemen!”
“As I stood next to and heard my younger brother saying these things, I felt like crying but had no tears,” Tsering told Woeser. “Every single time that I had gone to the Security Bureau I had told the police my opinion and asked them to tell me what crimes my brother had committed. They never gave me an explicit response. My brother is innocent, I told the police to let him go immediately.”
Jigme was first arrested in 2006 when he travelled to India to receive the Kalachakra teachings from the Dalai Lama. He was again detained in March 2008 following protests staged by fellow monks at the Labrang Monastery. Jigme was severely tortured and beaten till he lost consciousness and had to be hospitalised at the end his detention that lasted for more than a month.
Upon his release, he recorded a powerful video statement about his arrest, torture and the wider crackdown in Tibet and sent it to media outlets outside Tibet. On returning to his monastery after hiding for several weeks, Jigme was for the third time detained and held for six months without charge.
Source: Phayul.com
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