Dharamshala — Chinese authorities sentenced a Tibetan teacher to six years in prison for teaching the Tibetan language to 300 students during their vacation. His whereabouts was only revealed recently, nearly five years disappeared after his arrest by Chinese police.
According to the source, Chinese authorities in Kardze County suddenly arrested Tibetan teacher Palden Yeshe on May 17, 2021, and he had been missing since then until last month. His family members looked for him in police stations and detention centers but could not obtain any information about him. Palden Yeshe's arrest and imprisonment caused his father great suffering, and due to excessive harassment by Chinese police toward his family and relatives, his father passed away on September 29, 2022.
On January 8, 2026, it was reported that Palden Yeshe had been sentenced to six years in prison and was serving his sentence at Chushul Prison in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. However, it is unclear which court sentenced him, on what grounds, and what his health condition is, due to restrictions imposed on his family and relatives preventing them from sending information to free countries.
Those who know him have stated that the reason for his arrest and imprisonment was related to his teaching, particularly his teaching of the Tibetan language to more than 300 young Tibetan children during their school holidays. As the teaching of the Tibetan language, religion, and culture is prohibited by the Chinese government during school vacations and in schools, the Chinese government has deprived them of their fundamental right to learn their own language, religion, and culture.
Palden Yeshe was born on May 17, 1974, in the village of Dragnya, Kardze County, Kham, Eastern Tibet. His father's name was Sonam Tsewang and his mother's name was Tenga. He was a teacher at Kardze Monastery for many years until his arrest.
China-Tibet: The one-thing you need to know:
Over the past 70 decades, there has been ongoing political repression, social discrimination, economic marginalization, environmental destruction, and cultural assimilation, particularly due to Chinese migration to Tibet which is fueling intense resentment among the people of occupied Tibet.
The communist-totalitarian state of China began its invasion of Tibet in 1949, reaching complete occupation of the country in 1959. Since that time, more than 1.2 million people, 20% of the nation's population of six million, have died as a direct result of China's invasion and occupation. In addition, over 99% of Tibet's six thousand religious monasteries, temples, and shrines, have been looted or decimated resulting in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sacred Buddhist scriptures.
Until 1949, Tibet was an independent Buddhist nation in the Himalayas which had little contact with the rest of the world. It existed as a rich cultural storehouse of the Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings of Buddhism. Religion was a unifying theme among the Tibetans -- as was their own language, literature, art, and world view developed by living at high altitudes, under harsh conditions, in a balance with their environment.
