A Tibetan author jailed by China for writing a book about the Himalayan region has been released after a decade in prison, the US-based International Campaign for Tibet said.
Dolma Kyab, 39, was freed last week after being convicted a decade ago of “endangering state security,” the group said on Tuesday.
Tibet is tightly controlled by the Chinese Communist party, which is intolerant of public opposition to its policies, and often jails dissidents.
Kyab’s trial happened in secret in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and only came to light after a letter he wrote while incarcerated was smuggled out of prison months after his 2005 sentencing.
According to a copy of the letter seen by the rights group at the time, Kyab said that he was imprisoned because of the ideas he had expressed in his unpublished book The Restless Himalayas.
He added that authorities believed his writing was “connected to Tibetan independence.”
In his book, Kyab wrote about conceptions of Tibetan identity, as well as Tibetan hopes for exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to return to his homeland, the group said.
“Tibetan brothers and sisters: We live in a time of national devastation. We have weathered countless years of darkness, countless dark nights,” he wrote.
He also wrote about the “political burden” suffered by Tibetans because China’s Han majority “impose their way of thinking onto Tibetans,” thus “destroying the concept the Tibetans have of themselves.”
China, which has ruled Tibet since the 1950s, has been accused of trying to eradicate its Buddhist-based culture through political and religious repression and large-scale immigration by Han Chinese.
Beijing says that Tibetans enjoy extensive freedoms and that it has brought economic growth to the region.
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled Tibet after an abortive uprising in 1959 and established a government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India.
After his release from Qushui Prison in Lhasa, Kyab was taken back to his home town, where family and friends draped him with white blessing scarves, the group said.
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