Dharamshala: Commemorating the 61st anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day of 10 March 1959, the China Desk of the Department of Information and International Relations, CTA launched the Chinese translation of the autobiography of prominent Tibetan political prisoner and a key participant in the 1959 uprising, late Yulo Tulku Dawa Tsering Rinpoche.

Yulo Tulku Dawa Tsering, a former political prisoner and a respected senior lama was an inspiration to Tibetans inside Tibet, particularly for those languishing in Chinese prisons. Yulo Dawa Tsering served 20 years in prison after his participation in the March 1959 Uprising in Lhasa. He was detained again in December 1987 and spent more than seven years in prison for expressing views on the situation in Tibet in a video filmed by an Italian tourist. He was finally released several weeks before the arrival of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance in 1994 although he remained under close and restrictive surveillance until his death in January 2002. Throughout the ordeal, Yulo Tulku secretly maintained a journal, which was later smuggled into India and published by Guchusum. The Chinese translation of the book is now published by the China Desk.

The book titled ‘The Footprints of Yulo’s Life’ is an important window to understanding the truth of China’s repression in Tibet. The book introduces the fate and experiences of Tibetan political prisoners in an honest truthful account and a personal journey of Yolo Rinpoche from a naive rural child to a well-trained Buddhist master and to being treated as CCP ’s “criminal” in the final years of his life.

This account of Yulo Rinpoche’s personal experiences and reflections shed light on the Chinese Communist Party’s brutal suppression of the Tibetan people, the implementation of a series of devastating policies and the inhuman treatment of the Tibetans in Tibet.

The head of the China Desk, Tenzin Dhetan on Wednesday gave a presentation on the book at a talk series event organised by the Tibet Policy Institute.

Brief bio of Yulo Tulku Dawa Tsering

Venerable Yulo Tulku Dawa Tsering was born in 1930 in Tagtse Zong in Tibet. In 1950, he obtained the prestigious degree of “Geshe Lharampa”. In 1959, he was arrested for his participation in the Lhasa Uprising. Although released in 1979 after 20 years, he was again arrested in December 1987 along with his friend Venerable Thupten Tsering, a monk from Sera monetary, for speaking on the prevailing human rights abuses and poverty in Tibet. On 19 January 1989, the Lhasa Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Ven Yulo Trulku to 10 years in Drapchi Prison. He resisted Chinese torture and indoctrination. Later, he suffered from both mental and physical illness because of the long period of imprisonment and inhumane treatment. He remained a true patriot till his death on 16 January 2002 at his home in Lhasa.