(Please contact Free Tibet Campaign if acting after 26 January 2005)

The Foreign Secretary Jack Straw MP and the Scottish Deputy Minister Jim Wallace MSP will be visiting China in January 2005. This is an opportunity to ask them both to raise Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche¼s case directly with the Chinese authorities. Mr Straw's visit is said to be imminent and the Deputy Minister will be in China in late January.

Following the 17 December 2004 Urgent Campaign on Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, Xinhua, China's official news agency, stated on 27 December 2004 that Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche has "been found not to intentionally commit a crime during his imprisonment", which is Chinese code for a likely commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment on 23 January 2005. There has been some confusion over the exact expiry date of Rinpoche¼s sentence as China had previously given the 26 January 2005 in information to the EU in February 2004. However, the latest information from sources at the EU and other European governments indicate the 23 January date. The Xinhua article seems to confirm that. If China does indeed decide to commute his suspended death sentence to life imprisonment, it will remain an effective death sentence given the prevalence of torture and terrible prison conditions in Tibet's prisons.

Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche was accused of taking part in "causing explosions" and "splittist activities" and was sentenced on 2 December 2002 to a two year suspended death sentence, which was subsequently confirmed at an appeal on 26 January 2003. The only evidence was a 'confession', later retracted amidst claims of torture, from his co-accused Lobsang Dhondup. Dhondup, tragically, was executed immediately following the appeal on 26 January 2003.

Action