Yeshe Choedron (益西曲珍) is a Tibetan retired doctor from Lhasa who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2008 on charges of “espionage.” On November 7, 2008, the Lhasa Intermediate People’s Court convicted her after she was accused of providing “intelligence and information harmful to the security and interests of the state” to the exile Tibetan administration’s security department. The case was reported by the official Lhasa Evening News and documented by Human Rights Watch and the International Campaign for Tibet.
Yeshe Choedron — rendered in pinyin as Yixi Quzhen — was arrested at her home in Lhasa in March 2008, in the aftermath of the protests that swept the Tibetan plateau that month. She was held in Drapchi Prison. International monitors who follow her case describe the espionage charges as unfounded; according to the International Campaign for Tibet, no evidence was presented at her trial, and her children were not permitted to visit her after sentencing.
The Rights Defense Network’s August 31, 2026 monthly report on political and conscience prisoners in mainland China lists Yixi Quzhen (益西曲珍, Tibetan) in its “sentenced to 15 years” group and classifies its entries as political prisoners and prisoners of conscience currently in custody. Her 15-year term, counted from November 2008, would nominally have ended in November 2023; no release has been publicly reported and no independent source has confirmed her present status.
In 2016, Yeshe Choedron received the inaugural Tenzin Delek Rinpoche Medal of Courage, an international award for Tibetan human rights defenders, while still recorded as a serving prisoner.
Sources: International Campaign for Tibet; Human Rights Watch, “I Saw It with My Own Eyes” (2010); Human Rights Watch, “China: Free Tibetans Unjustly Imprisoned” (2019); Tibet Society; Rights Defense Network / 维权网, Issue 131 monthly report, August 31, 2026.
View the Yeshe Choedron Media Profile & Archive for full source detail and provenance.