June 5, 2025
Contravening Chinese regulations, family and lawyer blocked from visiting prominent Tibetan businessman Dorje Tashi.
Prison authorities in Tibet have again denied family members access to imprisoned businessman Dorje Tashi, blocking a scheduled visit at Chushur (Qushui) prison in Lhasa last month in apparent violation of Chinese regulations. The continued restrictions have intensified concerns for his welfare, particularly given his documented history of severe torture in custody.
Dorje Tashi, 51, was among Tibet’s most prominent entrepreneurs and was a member of the Chinese Communist Party before his 2008 arrest. Following his detention, he endured torture so severe that prison guards reportedly wept and attempted to shield him from interrogators sent from Beijing. He remains imprisoned on charges that sources describe as being fabricated by senior Party officials in the Tibet Autonomous Region, targeting both him and his brother Dorje Tsetan.
On April 29, prison officials refused to allow Dorje Tsetan and Chinese lawyer Wang Fei to visit, citing an unexplained “violation of prison rules.” Dorje Tsetan, who served six years in prison in connection with his brother’s case, had waited at the facility for several days attempting to secure the meeting. He described the denial of access to his brother as “unbearable.” Tibetan sources in exile report that Dorje Tashi was being punished for an unspecified infraction and may have been placed in solitary confinement.
The visit had been properly scheduled over a month in advance in accordance with standard legal procedures, with all required documentation submitted to prison authorities beforehand. This appears to contravene Article 8 of China’s Regulations on Lawyers Meeting with Detained Criminals, which requires authorities to “arrange meetings promptly” for properly submitted requests, or provide “clear explanations within 48 hours” for any delays.
Family members have not been permitted to see Dorje Tashi for several years, despite repeated attempts. Dorje Tsetan[1] has documented a pattern of delays and obstruction by prison and Lhasa authorities in responding to requests for standard visitation rights since their last meeting in 2019. Even Dorje Tashi’s lawyer has been limited to just a single video call in the past year.
The systematic denial of access has heightened fears for Dorje Tashi’s condition and well-being, particularly given his mistreatment and the apparent disregard for established legal procedures governing prisoner visitation rights.
Seventeen years on, after exhausting official routes, Dorje Tashi’s siblings have turned to bold public appeals and advocacy to demand justice for their brother. Dorje Tashi’s elder sister Gonpo (Gonmo) Kyi has staged sit-ins in front of the People’s Court in Lhasa. In April 2024, she was severely beaten by police following solo protests in front of the Tibet Higher People’s Court in Lhasa a month earlier, in which she again called for a retrial for her brother.[2] Dorje Tsetan has made public appeals for family visits to his brother.
Dorje Tashi: from outstanding Party member to life in prison
Dorje Tashi[3] from Labrang, Amdo (now Gansu province) was a Communist Party member who belonged to Tibet’s wealthy super elite. His company Tibet Manasarovar Group owned a chain of luxury hotels in Tibet, including the famous Yak Hotel in Lhasa, and he won numerous accolades from Party officials. A document submitted to the courts by his lawyer Wang Fei also described him as a former deputy to the 11th National People’s Congress of Shigatse, the Tibet Autonomous Region.[4]
In July 2008, a few months after China imposed a crackdown of unprecedented scope and scale across Tibet, he was detained and sentenced to life in prison at a secret trial. The Lhasa Intermediate People’s Court also ordered the confiscation of all his property and funds.
The Chinese authorities have never released any information about the case, but in October 2018 lawyers acting for Dorje Tashi revealed that the court had convicted him for the crime of loan fraud. An expert legal opinion issued by a Beijing-based law firm commissioned by the family concluded that it was “impossible” for the evidence to be construed as a case of fraud or to merit a life sentence.[5]
The rejection of Dorje Tashi’s appeals despite lawyers’ legal opinions, and the cursory treatment of the evidence, supports the lawyer’s allegations that the appeals court and the Supervision Commission were acting under political instructions. In February 2020, Dorje Tashi’s elder brother, Dorje Tseten, published a detailed statement online alleging that the successive cases brought against Dorje Tashi had been fabricated by court officials and police at the instigation of a senior Tibetan official called Norbu Dondrub. The accusations that Norbu Dondrub, 62, arranged for false charges to be made against Dorje Tashi have not been independently confirmed, but are supported by other statements made by family members citing Dorje Tashi’s first-hand statements,[6] and by an interview by Human Rights Watch with a mid-ranking Tibetan official from Lhasa.[7]
In August 2021, an overseas Chinese human rights organisation published a statement by Dorje Tashi, in which he described in his own words how he was interrogated whilst in detention.[8] It is the most detailed account – written in Chinese and verified by family members as genuine – of torture and interrogation known to have emerged from a Tibetan prisoner who is still incarcerated.
The first 12 days of Dorje Tashi’s torture and interrogation occurred outside of official detention centres, in what is believed to have been a military camp in Lhasa – known as an extra-legal ‘black jail’. His mistreatment continued after transfer to an official detention centre, although here security personnel attempted to prevent the interrogation team from excessive brutality. Tibet Watch has documented numerous cases of deaths following extreme torture in Tibet.
Evidence from inside the prison and other Tibetan sources point to the existence of a specialist team or unit in Beijing of the feared ‘Guobao’ or secret police, who carried out the most severe torture. A central Guobao team or unit specialising in interrogation techniques and torture sent from Beijing to Tibet has not been documented before. The two interrogators, whose surnames were given as Liu and Ma, overruled repeated complaints from the local police and prison staff about their use of excess violence. In the end the two interrogators had to be deterred by local Tibetan prison officials from having physical access to the prisoner, whose survival appears to have been at risk, according to Dorje Tashi’s statement. “For Chinese dissidents, guobao means nightmare,” said Chinese writer Murong Xuecun, describing the Guobao as ‘secret police’. “The ‘guobao’ is rarely mentioned in news reports, and few people know the details of its budget and structure. It is everywhere, it is all-powerful, and it can make people suffer at any time.”[9]
The two interrogators from Beijing reportedly told Dorje Tashi that they or their unit within the Public Security Bureau was not answerable to any other entity. They described themselves as “public security officers with a special mandate and with special powers” and said that China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress, legally speaking the supreme organ in the Chinese political system, “cannot interfere in our work as our mandate is specially empowered … To tell you in simple words, even if we kill or handicap you, we are not liable under the law.”[10] The two men also claimed that after major unrest in Lhasa in March 2008, “We have killed people like you during investigation. Nobody can do anything about it. If you do not cooperate, you too will meet the same fate.”
Tibet Watch calls on international governments to press the Chinese government for Dorje Tashi’s immediate release. Furthermore, as a matter of urgency, Dorje Tashi’s family should be allowed to visit him and to establish details of his health and welfare.
Governments should press the Chinese government to conduct an immediate investigation into Dorje Tashi’s case.
Endnotes
[1] Chinese transliteration: Duoji Cidan.
[2] Tibet Watch report, April 23 2024, https://tibetwatch.org/gonmo-kyi-beaten-by-police/.
[3] Chinese transliteration: Duoji Zhaxi.
[4] Lawyer’s Statement of Complaint by Wang Fei on behalf of Dorje Tseten and sister, 6 January, 2020. ‘Criminal complaint [concerning the case] of a former deputy of the 11th National People’s Congress of Shigatse City’, https://wqw2010.blogspot.com/2021/08/blog-post_18.html. Posted on Weiquanwang, 18 August 2021. The complaint is against the PRC Supreme Court.
[5] The legal experts drew attention to a comparable case in 2010 in which two Chinese businessmen were each sentenced to 15 years for committing “loan fraud” involving a sum of 53 million yuan. The Chinese businessmen received lesser sentences, managed to get their sentences reduced and are now out of prison. https://archive.vn/9JYvi.
[6] This is based on messages from family members of Dorje Tashi to his lawyer.
[7] The official told Human Rights Watch that Dorje Tashi had not been involved in anything political, just business, and that his life sentence was inexplicable on the basis of the evidence against him. The official also confirmed that all his businesses were confiscated although the official believed his wife still ran the Yak Hotel.
[8] First received in May 2021 from a Tibetan exile source, and later published in Chinese by Weiquanwang on 18 August 2021. Analysis of the statement and legal context in Turquoise Roof report, 5 December 2023, https://turquoiseroof.org/leading-tibetan-businessman-fights-for-life-in-prison-as-siblings-seek-to-secure-release/
[9] New York Times, 18 July 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/opinion/murong-xuecun-inside-a-beijinginterrogation-room.html.
[10] Dorje Tashi’s testimony states: “Liu was yelling at me, ‘What kind of Communist Party Member are you? Your status as CPPCC [Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference] member is useless, I have tamed tigers in Beijing [Xi Jinping pledged to crack down on tigers, powerful leaders, and flies, or lowly bureaucrats, in his ‘anti-corruption’ drive], so I can deal with you. After the 3.14 incident [rioting and crackdown] in Lhasa [in 2008], we tortured many people to death like you, no one has the balls to interfere with what we are doing, if you don’t cooperate, you will be another one of them’.”
