“To tell you in simple words, even if we kill or handicap you,

we are not liable under the law.”

Newly revealed testimony from a Tibetan businessman and philanthropist who is in critical health after years of torture and imprisonment documents the horrifying abuse he received in pre-trial detention.

Dorjee Tashi (多吉扎西), considered one of the wealthiest people in Tibet, received a life sentence in 2010 in the wake of the Chinese government’s crackdown on mass Tibetan protests in spring 2008. Dorjee is currently serving in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) Prison No 1, colloquially known as Drapchi Prison, where Tibetan prisoners are known to be tortured during their incarceration. His wife Sonam Choedon (索朗曲珍) has not been allowed to see him since December 2019.

Dorjee was a successful businessman who owned a luxury hotel chain and real estate companies in Tibet when he was arrested in July 2008. He was framed as a “secessionist” by spiteful and vindictive political and party leaders taking advantage of the political situation in the wake of the mass Tibetan protests. While political charges were later dropped later, he was declared guilty of “loan fraud” and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Lhasa Intermediate People’s Court on May 17, 2010. The court of second instance the TAR People’s Higher Court upheld the verdict on July 26, 2010. Dorjee was then 36 years old.

Torture testimony

The International Campaign for Tibet has obtained Dorjee Tashi’s testimony about the torture and ill-treatment he experienced during his pre-trial detention. The testimony was part of his 2013-14 petition for retrial.

The testimony covers four months of his pre-trial detention in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in 2008—before his transfer to a detention center in Mainling County (Chinese: Milin) in Nyingtri (Chinese: Linzhi)—and details torture practices such as beatings with electric batons, being cuffed to an iron bar and hung in the air, simulation of suffocation, pouring hot chili fluid through nostrils and sleep deprivation.

The testimony is also remarkable as it identifies individuals directly responsible for carrying out acts of torture as officers affiliated with the central government’s Ministry of Public Security, the Tibet Autonomous Region Public Security Bureau and the Mainling County Public Security Bureau in the then-Nyingtri Prefecture. It corresponds to other reports on the use of torture in Tibet and to findings of independent international human rights experts.

Read the full report here.