A prominent Tibetan writer, educator and public intellectual, Go Sherab Gyatso, known as Gosher, is serving a 10-year prison sentence reportedly imposed following a secret trial held in late 2021. He was detained by People's Republic of China (PRC) security services on 26 October 2020, in the Sichuan province’s city of Chengdu on suspicion of inciting secession. He was subsequently transferred to the Tibetan Autonomous Region where he was formally charged on 3 February 2021.

Human rights groups and national governments have called for Gosher’s immediate release, and independent experts of the United Nations, including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, have expressed serious concern over his imprisonment. There are also ongoing concerns over Gosher’s health and access to adequate medical care, following reports that he was detained while seeking medical treatment for a chronic lung condition.

Gosher, born on 9 September 1976, is the author of over 10 books, including Wake Up (2007), Insights of a Thinker (2013) and Across the Himalayas (2015), and the author of several essays which have been translated into English and are available online. Much of his writing centres on Tibetan Buddhism, language, and culture, and he has been heavily critical of the government’s efforts to undermine Tibetan children’s access to education in their mother tongue.

This is the fourth time that the PRC authorities have imprisoned Gosher, who was previously detained in 1998 and 2008 for his criticism of government restrictions on Tibetan religious and cultural practices, and in 2011 after meeting with a publisher concerning his second book, General Knowledge & the Path (2011).