Last week the Lhasa People’s Intermediate Court handed down a suspended death sentence to another Tibetan in connection with the March 2008 events in Lhasa.

23-year-old Sonam Tsering has become the seventh Tibetan to be sentenced to death following the 2008 uprising. Two of those sentenced last year - Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak - are now known to have been executed. All trials have been conducted in secret despite strong international appeals for due legal process.

Read full report: Chinese court sentences Tibetan man to death, 5 others to long jail terms

In a striking contrast, a few days earlier activists gathered in Vienna were hailing a worldwide trend towards total and universal abolition of capital punishment. The “euphoric” mood among abolitionists followed the tabling in Geneva of the UN’s latest five yearly report on capital punishment.

See: World moves toward death penalty ban

Today more than two thirds of the world’s nations have already abolished the death penalty, either in law or in practice (meaning that while the death penalty may still be provided for in legislation, no executions have taken place in that country for at least ten years).

China remains in stark opposition to this global trend and continues to execute more people than any other nation. Last year Amnesty International estimated that 1718 executions had taken place during 2008, while conceding that the true figure was likely much higher. On 29 December 2009 China executed British national Akmal Shaikh on charges of drug trafficking despite strong appeals for clemency from the British government.

News of yet another death sentence being passed in Lhasa has shocked the Tibetan community.

“While the Dalai Lama and Tibetan people continue to reach out to China in a spirit of reconciliation and compromise, China continues to kick back with an unrelenting program of oppression, attacks on the Dalai Lama and the arbitrary imprisonment and execution of Tibetans,” said Simon Bradshaw, Campaign Coordinator for the Australia Tibet Council.