The charges against Karma Samdrup date back to 1998 but were not pursued until this year. They stem from purchases he made of carpets, wooden artifacts and other antiques at a shop in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

Lawyer Pu Zhiqiang has said his client bought the items because he was interested in them as a collector, but did not know they had been plundered from graves in the region. Karma Samdrup had a government license to trade in cultural relics.

Social activism punished 
Supporters have said the June 24 trial was aimed at punishing Karma Samdrup after he spoke up for his two brothers who were detained after accusing local officials in eastern Tibet of poaching endangered species.

Authorities in tightly controlled Tibet are extremely sensitive to social activism and criticism, either explicit or implied.

Pu, who complained of irregularities during the original trial, said he only learned on 2 August that his client’s appeal had been rejected on July 7.

Appeal rejected
The Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate Court never responded to the documents he filed for Karma Samdrup’s appeal and have not explained why they rejected it, he said. Pu also questioned why the appeal was rejected so quickly after the conclusion of the original trial.

“I don’t know why they’re in a such a hurry. What are they afraid of? What are they trying to cover up?” he said in an interview with the news agency Associated Press (AP).

According to AP, phones at the court rang unanswered on 2 August 2010.

Background
The three brothers – Rinchen Samdrup, Karma Samdrup and Chime Namgyal – were previously regarded by the Chinese authorities as model citizens and were acclaimed in the state-run media for their environmental and cultural work.

Karma Samdrup, a well-known environmentalist and philanthropist, was given a 15-year sentence on 24 June on trumped-up charges of “grave robbing”; elder brother Rinchen Samdrup was sentenced on 3 July to a 5-year sentence for “incitement to split the country” and youngest brother Chime Namgyal is serving a 21-month re-education-through-labor sentence for “harming national security”.

In the mid-2000s, Karma Samdrup financed an environmental protection organization, the Qinghai Three River Environmental Protection group, after the Chinese government began a massive effort to protect the environment of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau.

In 2006, he was named philanthropist of the year by state broadcaster the People´s Republic of China Central Television (CCTV) for “creating harmony between men and nature”.

Over the years, the group has won several awards for its work, including a one million yuan (about US$130,000) grant as a “Model Project” from the One Foundation, a charity created by the Chinese martial art movie star Jet Li; and the Earth Prize, an environmental prize jointly administered by Friends of the Earth Hong Kong and the Ford Motor company.

HRH Oslo, based on Associated Press and Norwegian Tibet Committee information.

Related links:

Prosecution of environmentalists: China rocking its own boat

Leading Tibetan environmentalist and art collector gets 15 years in jail