Tanak Jigme passed away on 17 October 2020 at an elderly care home in Turbenthal, Switzerland, where he had been based since receiving political asylum in 2003, a year after he completed 32-year sentence in Chinese prison.

He was released on medical parole at the age of 76 in March 2002.

He was first arrested in 1959 while teaching at Lhasa Primary School, charged with "corrupting the minds of children with reactionary ideas" and sentenced to three years in prison. In 1964 he was arrested again and sentenced to three years of "Labour reeducation" in Sangyip Prison. In 1970 he was again arrested and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. He was rearrested on 3 September 1983 and sentenced to 10 years in Sangyip Prison for ‘counter-revolutionary’ propaganda.

According to official sentence paper issued on 30 November 1983 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison with 5 years of deprivation of civil and political rights which later in 1988 increased by another five years and further deprivation of rights for one extra year.

In 1991 he shouted slogans in Drapchi prison during a visit by Swiss government officials which resulted in an increase in his sentence term by another eight years with further deprivation of civil and political rights by three years. The sentence passed on 1983 therefore became of 28 years in total. He was beaten harshly till his body turned numb and a new method of 'Cold Cell' torture was first used on him where he was surrounded by cold metal sheets on either side of the wall to lower the temperature of the cell.