Gangkye Drubpa Kyab (岗吉•志巴加)
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Crime: “inciting separatism”
Length of Punishment: 14 years
Court: Kardze Intermediate Court, Sichuan Province
Trial Date: Unknown
Sentencing Date: Unknown date in September 2022
Dates of Detention/Arrest/Indictment: March 2021 detained, date of arrest and indictment unknown
Place of Incarceration: Unknown
Gangkye Drubpa Kyab is a Tibetan writer and teacher whose published works include a book detailing the 2008 protests, A Year Written in Blood. Police in Kardze, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province arrested Gangkye Drubpa Kyab in March 2021, and in September 2022 the Kardze Intermediate Court sentenced him to 14 years in prison on charges of “inciting separatism.” Gangkye Drubpa Kyab had previously been sentenced to prison on national security charges for his advocacy for Tibetans’ rights. During that sentence, prison officials tortured and ill-treated him, resulting in multiple health complications. His current status and whereabouts are unknown.
In 2013, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy translated one of Gangkye Drubpa Kyab’s poems:
Tears of the Past
The history of the Snow-landers
When I think of it now, all I get is tears
No moments of joy occur in our hearts
When all we do now is swallow tears
In the midst of illusory history
And the war of the brazen reds
Countless Tibetan lives have been lost
Ah, this suffering!
Amid the war of the past
Our protector exiled behind the snow-mountains
The red terror tramples upon the Tibetan people
Who can endure the present loss?
Further information
“China: End Long-Term Imprisonment of Human Rights Defenders”, CHRD, December 9, 2025[F1]
“6 Tibetan writers and former political prisoners sentenced to 4 to 14 years,” International Campaign for Tibet, October 20, 2022‘Tears of the Past’: Imprisoned Tibetan writer Gangkye Drupa Kyab in translation, Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, August 20, 2013
