Gonpo Kyi protests again outside Lhasa High Court for a retrial for her brother Dorjee Tashi: ICT says police repeatedly beat her, causing internal injuries and broken bones; Dorjee Tashi has served life since 2010 on 'loan fraud' charges

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According to ICT's November 3 analysis: on October 26, Gonpo Kyi staged another protest outside the Tibet Autonomous Region Higher People's Court in Lhasa. She held a portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping alongside a two-point petition demanding, first, that her brother Dorjee Tashi's defence lawyers be given full access to the case files, and second, that a public retrial be convened to overturn the verdict. The petition concludes: 'Dorjee Tashi is innocent.' Video footage provided to ICT by Sakar Tashi, a Tibetan residing in Belgium, shows Gonpo Kyi staging her peaceful appeal while her husband, Choekyong, films the demonstration; when an officer approached and ordered Choekyong to stop filming, he refused, saying on camera that Dorjee Tashi's case was not being handled according to the constitution, that if things were conducted according to the law they would not need to record anything, and that police vehicles were circling, preparing to detain them again. [1][2][3]

ICT says sources close to the family revealed that Gonpo Kyi has staged multiple similar protests outside the same court over the past four years, including in June and August this year, and that Lhasa police officers have routinely assaulted, dragged and beaten her during these protests, breaking her arm, fracturing bones and causing internal bleeding and chronic health issues. Sakar Tashi noted that while Gonpo Kyi has carried out dozens of protests, Chinese security personnel routinely detain her, forcibly confiscate phones and delete recorded footage and photos, severely restricting information from reaching the outside world. Family sources also report that the authorities maintain 24-hour surveillance on Dorjee Tashi's elder brother, Dorjee Tseten: plainclothes agents trail him wherever he goes and routinely force him out of Lhasa to remote locations during politically sensitive periods. The details of the beatings and surveillance come from family accounts relayed by ICT and have not been independently verified by this site. [1][3]

The background to Dorjee Tashi's case: a well-known Tibetan philanthropist and owner of the luxury Yak Hotel in Lhasa, he was detained by the authorities shortly after the 2008 mass demonstrations across Tibet, accused of providing covert support to protesters and making offerings to the Dalai Lama, and held in secret incommunicado detention for eight months. On May 17, 2010, the Lhasa Intermediate People's Court secretly sentenced him to life imprisonment on politically motivated charges of 'loan fraud' involving 1.5 million yuan, in a trial that ICT says lacked due process, access to legal counsel and credible evidence; in a similarly politicised process, his brother Dorjee Tseten was sentenced to six years in prison. Dorjee Tashi was transferred to Drapchi Prison (Tibet Autonomous Region Prison No. 1), the largest prison in Tibet, notorious for housing political prisoners convicted of state-security-related crimes. ICT published Dorjee Tashi's testimony detailing the torture he suffered during his pre-trial detention in August 2021. A further ICT report of August 19, 2026, says defence lawyers' requests to visit him in July and August 2026 were still refused; his elder brother and eldest sister last saw him in 2019 and his second sister in 2021, while his wife and children have been denied visits for about two years since 2024; prison officials also demanded that the family delete online advocacy posts and issue an apology. [1][4]

Verification note and deduplication: the core facts of this record — Gonpo Kyi's October 26 protest outside the Lhasa High Court, the contents of the petition, and Dorjee Tashi's 2010 life sentence, charge and secret trial — come from ICT's November 3 analysis (with protest video) and Phayul's October 30 report (as republished by Indian media), with Tibet Express carrying the same story on November 6; the three corroborate each other. The details of the beatings and the surveillance of his brother are family accounts relayed by ICT, reported here with attribution and without endorsement. Note on timing: the protest took place on October 26 and the ICT analysis was published on November 3; this site had not previously carried the Dorjee Tashi case and records it for the first time in this round. On the question of whether the 'loan fraud' charge is well founded, this site makes no judgement; it records the procedure of the trial (secret, without counsel) and ICT's characterisation of it. [1][2][3][4]