Jampa Tsering was sentenced to a year and a half for “inciting separatism”

On 3 August 2020, Jampa Tsering, a Tibetan student was sentenced to one year and six months by Tsolho (Ch: Hainan) Intermediate Court on the charges of being involved in separatism. Although another student named Dugor Tsering was arrested on the same charges, he was exempted from criminal punishment since it was considered his first offense. The pair hail from Gome (Ch: Gonghe) County, Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, which is governed as part of Qinghai Province.

Jampa Tsering

Jampa was arrested after being involved with the public display of “illegal team flag and logo” on the Internet. The court confiscated their mobile phones as well.

Jampa was accused of storing the  ‘illegal pictures’ on a messaging app, QQ, and was therefore suspected with intentions of separatist crime and undermining national unity by the Chinese authorities. Dugor Tsering has also been accused to link with Jampa to obtain and design a football team flag and logo. It was publicly displayed to the audience during the 6th ”Holy Lake Cup” football match in Gongme county which later also circulated in Wechat moments. The Chinese authorities claimed it caused a bad political impact.

Tibet Watch has not been able to obtain the image and videos of the football team flag and emblem as they have already disappeared from the Internet.