China: New Detention in Lhasa, Ongoing Cases Show Persistent Repression

July 23, 2026 Comments Off

New detention in Lhasa reflects ongoing controls now reinforced by national law

(Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders — July 23, 2026) Chinese authorities apprehended activist Zhang Yi on July 1 after he showed a photo of the Dalai Lama to a Tibetan at Sera Monastery in Lhasa. In recent days Zhang’s family received a notification stating that the Lhasa Public Security Bureau had criminally detained him on July 18, on suspicion of “inciting separatism,” according to the Chinese-language site Rights Defense Network. He is currently held at Lhasa Detention Center.

Zhang was a student leader in Wuhan, Hubei Province, during the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy movement. Following the June Fourth crackdown, he was imprisoned for two years on a charge of “gathering a crowd to disrupt traffic order.”

Zhang’s detention comes as Chinese government’s Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress took effect, also on July 1. Article 62 of the law names “ethnic separatist activities” and “incitement” of such activities among the conduct subject to criminal prosecution, showing how the new legislation is designed to reinforce the Criminal Law provisions long used to punish religious and political expression that authorities deem unacceptable.

CHRD’s March 2025 report on arbitrary detention found a stark overrepresentation of certain ethnic groups among prisoners of conscience relative to their share of the national population. This is most pronounced for Tibetans, who make up just 0.5 percent of China’s population yet account for more than 8 percent of entries in the Prisoners of Conscience Database. Tibetans represent 65 percent of all known convictions in the database on charges of “separatism” or “inciting separatism.”

Several recent cases illustrate arbitrary detention and harsh sentences. Tibetan environmental activist Anya Sengdra, who campaigned against illegal mining and the poaching of endangered species, completed a prison sentence of more than seven years in February 2026 on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” and “gathering people to disturb public order.” In late August 2025, days before his scheduled release, authorities extended his sentence on an additional, unidentified charge. Since his release in February 2026, he has remained under state surveillance.

Tibetan singer Ah Sang was released in January 2026 following two detentions in July and August 2025 over a song he performed and shared on social media commemorating the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday on July 6, 2025; he too remains under state surveillance. The whereabouts of Choktrul Dorje Ten Rinpoche, a religious leader and founder of a vocational school, remain unknown since his detention in December 2025, with no indication he has had access to legal counsel. Around 2010, he founded and led a monastery in Mentang Township, Chikdril (Jiuzhi) County, in the Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, where he also established a vocational school offering instruction in Tibetan language, culture, and vocational skills.

These cases reflect common, human rights-violating practices: treating peaceful expressions of Tibetan identity, religious devotion, language, and culture as threats to “ethnic unity” and “national security.” The new “ethnic unity” law, which contravenes China’s obligations under the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Racial Discrimination, among other international human rights treaties, will likely worsen these realities.

Authorities have also continued targeting Tibetan Buddhist institutions as part of coercive assimilation policies. In Serthar, eastern Tibet, Larung Gar — one of the world’s largest Tibetan Buddhist centers — is undergoing a new round of demolitions that, according to the advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet, will affect at least 1,060 residences belonging to monks and nuns.

For more information, please contact:

Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director, Chinese Human Rights Defenders,
sophierichardson[at]nchrd.org, +1 917 721 7473

Shane Yi, Researcher, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, shaneyi[at]nchrd.org