Tibet Watch has learned that Rinchen Kyi had not been diagnosed with any illness after the Chinese authorities forcefully took her to a hospital in Xining City last year.

After the security officials were informed by the doctor about the medical result, they abruptly made a phone call to Rinchen’s family and told them to arrive at the hospital in two minutes if they wanted to see her. On reaching there after five minutes, they found her nowhere. She had already been taken to another place that  no one till date knows about. We have since learned that Rinchen Kyi was never diagnosed with any illness.

Rinchen Kyi

The source in Xining, whose identity is kept anonymous for security reasons, has contacts with the townspeople of Rinchen Kyi in Darlag County, Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province.

“When they contacted the security officials, they were not given details of her whereabouts, and instead they were being blamed for letting them wait”, although, he continues “it is not at all possible to reach in two mins and it is just a pretext to take her away.”

Seeking every legal avenue to seek information about Rinchen, her family of five, including a 13-year old daughter and a grandmother aged 79, has since then persisted in appealing to Qinghai Provincial authorities to give them information about her whereabouts and well-being. Prior to her arrest on 1 August 2021, she was already distressed and growing weak from loss of appetite following the forced shutdown of the school she was teaching at.

Rinchen Kyi’s arrest from her home followed the forced closure of the renowned Tibetan school, Sengdruk Taktse Middle School, in July last year. Now in her 40s, she was one of the longest-serving teachers at the school that was founded for families lacking financial resources. The shutdown of Sengdruk Taktse not only caused the disintegration of the closely-knit community of students – leaving non-local students adrift without a certainty of school admission but has also affected teachers, who have been forbidden from sheltering orphans.