Topden (Dro Ghang Gah)

Topden (better known as Dro Ghang Gah) is a Tibetan poet who was sentenced to five years in prison on November 30, 2013 on official charges of “keeping contacts with Dalai clique,” referring to his Buddhist religion. However, multiple organizations in Tibet and abroad believe that Topden was specifically targeted for his writings, which frequently lament the state of his homeland under Chinese rule. An excerpt from his poem “Sad Song of Diru” appears below:

In the year 1969
For the sake of Tibetan freedom
Hundreds of brave souls
Were massacred by the Chinese…

Looking up at the vast blue sky
I could see vultures hovering
The narrow space and group of widows
Is there a time more miserable?

Topden, who has a wife and three children, is currently being detained in Nagchu Prefecture, Tibet, and is expected to remain there until November 2018.

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Message Recipients: Wu Aiying - Minister of Justice, Yang Jiechi - Minister of Foreign Affairs

I am deeply concerned with the arrest and imprisonment of Topden, the Tibetan poet who writes under the pseudonym Dro Ghang Gah. Officially charged for being a practicing follower of the Dalai Lama, Topden is famous for his history of criticizing China’s government in his writings and numerous organizations have maintained that he has been persecuted purely for his art. The right to freedom of expression and assertion of one's cultural identity are not crimes and should be protected by China, as enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights via the Universal Declaration of Human rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). I urge you to rectify this situation and free this innocent artist.

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Topden (Dro Ghang Gah)

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