Trusted Witness Silenced in Tibet

Kunchok Jinpa, a Tibetan tour guide beloved for his cultural activism and trusted for timely, accurate reports about events in his region, died aged 51 on Feb. 6, three months after he was hospitalized with paralysis and a brain hemorrhage as a result of torture in prison. He had vanished in custody after being detained on Nov. 8, 2013, leading to a near total shutdown of news from Driru, where Tibetans had resisted a Chinese mining project on a sacred mountain and a campaign to force residents to fly red Communist Party flags on their houses.