Profiles of Courage: Day 45 – January 25th

Takna Jigme Sangpo
Age: 80 (Year of Birth: 1928)
School Teacher; Tibet's longest serving political prisoner

Takna Jigme Sangpo is an enduring symbol of Tibetan resistance. At age 32, while working as a teacher at Lhasa Primary School he was detained on charges of "corrupting the minds of children with reactionary ideas". Five years later he was detained again for making "counter revolutionary" comments.

Takna Jigme Sangpo spent most of the next 40 years in Chinese prisons and labor camps. As a staunch supporter of Tibetan freedom, he continued to resist China's occupation, even while in prison. In 1991, his sentence was extended after he shouted slogans calling for Tibetan freedom during a visit by a Swiss delegation to Drapchi prison, where he was being held.

During his imprisonment, Takna Jigme Sangpo faced the full brutality of Chinese repression, especially in light of his fierce defiance and perserverance. Facing a cumulative sentence of 41 years, he was originally set to be released in 2011 but due to international pressure he was released in March 2002 at the age of 74. Read more about his life. 

Below is an excerpt of Takna Jigme Sangpo's statement on April 3, 2003 to the United Nations Human Rights Commission:

"Ladies and gentlemen, despite the guarantees of protection in the constitution of China and her obligations to various international human rights instruments, I was imprisoned because I carried out a non-violent human struggle to defend the legitimate rights of the six million Tibetan people. During those more than three decades of a political prisoner's life, I was tortured both physically and mentally, beyond human imagination. My dignity as a human being was humiliated and crushed. My physical appearance today is a proof of the immense suffering I endured. The Chinese authorities identified me as criminal who must suffer for life and die in prison. That is how I lost the best part of my life. I never thought I will leave the prison alive. But due to my fate I somehow survived, unlike thousands of Tibetans who sacrificed their lives for our just cause." Read his full statement.