A 22-year-old Tibetan monk died about one week after he was released from a prison where he was tortured, the London-based Tibet Information Network said on Tuesday.
The Religious Affairs Bureau under China's State Council, or Cabinet, dismissed the report as "sheer nonsense."Yeshe Samten died May 12 "as a result of torture, which left two of his ribs broken," said the group, which monitors rights abuses in communist-ruled Tibet.
He was "forced to walk on crutches due to his injuries," it said.
It did not say how or why he was tortured.
Yeshe Samten was released from Trisam prison, six miles west of Lhasa, on May 6, the group said.
He had served a two-year sentence after protesting at Ganden monastery in May 1996 against a ban on the display of pictures of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, it said.