Tibetan writer Tashi Rabten is reported to have been sentenced to four years in jail in south-west China for editing a banned magazine, according to the Washington based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT).
The case against Tashi Rabten was reportedly heard at Aba Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province, where the population is mainly ethnic Tibetan, according to a statement from the ICT.
He was placed under custodial detention in July 2009 and was formally arrested in April last year. Rabten is the fourth young Tibetan writer to be jailed in connection with the banned magazine Eastern Snow Mountain (Shar Dungri). The ICT says the magazine was the first published Tibetan language commentary about the situation following deadly anti-government riots in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in March of 2008.
Tibet’s Ngaba region Chinese court sentenced three other Tibetan writers who worked with Tashi Rabten in editing the magazine up to four years in prison on charges of “inciting activities to split the nation.” Jangtse Donkho and Buddha were reported to have received four years sentence in jail and Kalsang Jinpa was sentenced to three years.
At the time of his arrest, Tashi Rabten was set to graduate from the Northwest Nationalities University in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province.
