In a letter smuggled out from the Chusul prison on the outskirts of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and seen by The Times, Dolma Gyab says that he wants to draw attention to the situation in Tibet and seek help to fight a jail term that he says is unfair.

News of his incarceration coincides with a renewed crackdown on the internet by Chinese authorities, including the closure of one of the most popular online forums among intellectuals and students.

The 29-year-old teacher wrote: “I have written a book which was not yet published. In this book I wrote about democracy, freedom and the situation of Tibet. That is the main reason for my conviction, but according to Chinese law this would be not enough reason to give me such a sentence.”

His case has been kept secret since his arrest in March 2005 in Lhasa, where he was teaching history at a city middle school. He had written a 57-chapter book called Restless Himalayas and had also begun a book on Tibetan geography, which was believed to touch on such sensitive topics as the locations of Chinese military camps in Tibet. These unpublished papers were apparently found in his home.

His letter to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights says that these papers were the main reason for his conviction. The Lhasa People’s Intermediate Court on September 16 last year sentenced Dolma Gyab to ten years in prison on charges of endangering state security.

He wrote: “They can kill me but they cannot kill the love of nature, science and geography. I want to keep up my courage . . . I would like to draw attention to this situation and ask you to help me.”

Since the Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959 amid a failed anti-Chinese uprising, the authorities are believed to have jailed hundreds, if not thousands, of Tibetans for their resistance to rule from Beijing.

Tibet experts said that this was the most severe sentence to be handed down for several years. One expressed astonishment that the case could have been kept secret for so long.When the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, visited China in November, he was given access to prisoners at Chusul. But the case of the young writer was not then known. Dolma Gyab writes that he was hidden from the visitor. “I did not have a chance to talk about the real situation here and my unfair trial.”

Dolma Gyab was born in 1976 in Arik county of the ethnically Tibetan province of Qinghai where most people are nomad farmers. He studied history and geography at Qinghai Normal University then studied as a postgraduate at Beijing University. In 2003 he went to India and studied English in Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama lives. He returned to Tibet in 2004 to teach.

Last week officials closed down blogs maintained by the Tibetan writer Woeser, whose works are banned in China. Her blogs addressed such sensitive issues as the recently completed railway to Lhasa and the 40th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, when most Tibetan temples were destroyed. She told The Times: “This had to happen sooner or later. I will not start another blog but I will continue with my own writing.”

More than 100 writers and dissidents issued a letter yesterday to decry the closing of the Century China website that had been one of the few refuges for relatively unfettered views in the country.

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