Former Tibetan prisoner re-arrested and tortured after criticizing Chinese policies
August 1, 2016
Radio Free Asia, July 28, 2016 – A Tibetan man freed under supervision three years ago after serving more than 20 years in prison was released this month from an additional two months of detention during which he was beaten and tortured, Tibetan sources said.
Lodroe Gyatso, aged 55 and also known as Sogkar Lodroe, was released on July 22 from jail in Driru (in Chinese, Biru) county in the Tibet Autonomous Region’s Nagchu (Naqu) prefecture, a source in Tibet told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“He was severely beaten and tortured during the two months and six days he was held at Tsamthak jail in Driru,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“He lost about 15 pounds while in detention, and remains in poor and frail physical health,” the source said.
Gyatso had previously spent 21 years behind bars and was sentenced originally for 15 years for killing a man in a fight in 1991, but had his sentence extended two years later for engaging in political activism while incarcerated, sources said in earlier reports.
Following his release under police supervision in May 2013, Gyatso had recently criticized what he called China’s “oppressive policies” in some of the eastern counties of Nagchu prefecture, RFA’s source said.
“He pointed out to higher officials the discrepancies in their implementation of local Chinese policies, adding that this had resulted in harsh and unfair treatment of Tibetans that was contrary to national and international standards of law.”
“He was also critical of local Chinese authorities’ insistence that Tibetans wear traditional clothing lined with fur,” a practice discouraged by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and abandoned by local Tibetans some time before.
“For all these reasons, the Chinese authorities took him into custody again on May 14,” he said.
Bravery, patriotism
Gyatso, a native of Tsadrok township in Nagchu prefecture’s Sog (Suo) county, was previously a member of the Sog Performing Arts Troupe and had a reputation among his former fellow prisoners for “physical strength, bravery, and patriotism,” RFA’s source said.
In an article written last year titled “The Earth and Me,” Gyatso had called for the protection of Tibet’s natural environment, he said.
“He is married and has six siblings, including one younger brother and five sisters.”
Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.
A total of 145 Tibetans living in China have now set themselves ablaze in self-immolations since the wave of fiery protests began in 2009, with most protests featuring calls for Tibetan freedom and the Dalai Lama’s return from India, where he has lived since escaping Tibet during a failed national uprising in 1959.
Reported by Pema Ngodup for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney

600 buildings demolished at Larung Gar Buddhist Institute despite international outcry
August 1, 2016
Phayul, July 30, 2016 – The pace of demolition at one of Tibet’s biggest Buddhist institutions at Serthar County in Eastern Tibet is feared to be far graver than earlier expected with more than 600 structures leveled since the Chinese government led operations began last Wednesday.
Chinese workers are demolishing nearly 100 to 250 houses in a day, according to reports. The monastic leaders have instructed monks and lay practitioners not to protest or resist. With many dwellings already flattened to ground, the number of people affected is rising steadily. In the past six days, an estimated 600 dwellings have been torn down, with no sign that this will stop any time soon. Nuns whose living quarters have been destroyed are now staying temporarily with other residents of the institute who have not yet been affected. This means that some dwellings are now holding as many as 15 people each,” a local source told Radio Free Asia.
Although no incident of protest or confrontation has been reported, local authorities are not taking any chances with official Chinese directives to keep a troop of 500 personnel on hold at nearby Draggo County, Tawu County and Kardze County. Armed security guards have been deployed at separate sites in Larung Gar where demolition work is underway.
Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy earlier mentioned that an eight-point document was issued by the Chinese authorities that gave step-by-step guide to demolishing dwellings of thousands of monks, nuns and lay practitioners and their expulsion, in view to curb the number of residents to government-set ceiling of 5000.
“A four-page demolition order requires relevant departments including the management and administrative bodies of Larung Gar to reduce the number of residents to 5000 before 30 September 2017,” the rights group announced earlier this month, while explicitly naming authoritative bodies such as Prefecture Public Security Bureau, Prefecture Civil Affairs Department, Prefecture National Security Department, and Serthar County Government who will undertake the task.
The gradual process of reducing the strength of the institute founded by late Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok that once boasted around 10,000 students, including Han Chinese, to half could be a preventive measure since Beijing consider the center a hub for those who disseminate information to ‘exile separatist forces.’
The year 2001 saw the dismantling of Serthar Institute. Over 8,000 students were evicted forcibly from the institute and approximately 2,000 dwellings of monks and nuns were demolished that year.

India expels Chinese journalists who hid identities to visit Tibetan camps
July 25, 2016
By Rajesh Ahuja
Hindustan Times, July 25, 2016 – Two of three Chinese journalists who have been denied visa extension by Indian authorities visited Tibetan settlements in Karnataka late last year but didn’t reveal their identity, government sources said.
All three journalists work for Xinhua, China’s official news agency. While Wu Qiang and Lu Tang head Xinhua’s bureaux in New Delhi and Mumbai, respectively, She Yonggang was a reporter based in Mumbai.
A senior government official said Lu and She — who came to India in January last year — visited the Tibetan settlements. “The Mumbai-based Chinese journalists visited Karnataka-based Tibetan camps late last year and didn’t reveal their true identity. Thereafter, the government decided not to renew their visa,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Established in the 1960s, five settlements house around 40,000 Tibetans in Karnataka. Two of these settlements, or camps, are in Bylakuppe and one each in Mundgod, Hunsur and Kollegal. No foreigner or foreign aid agency can visit these or any Tibetan settlement in India without a protected area permit (PAP), which is issued by the Union home ministry and can be applied online.
“The journalists had not taken the PAP for visiting the camps but their real identities were detected when they reached there,” said the official. The official said the journalists had not been asked to leave India but their “visa has not been extended”. In the absence of an extension, the journalists have to leave India before their visa expires on July 31.
Sources had on Saturday told HT that the journalists came under the “adverse attention of security agencies” for allegedly indulging in activities beyond their journalistic brief.
Non-renewal of visas is a common practice followed by governments to expel foreign journalists. Beijing itself has followed the process several times to expel those whose writing is seen as critical to official policy.
News of their ‘expulsion’ was met with shock in China where it was widely discussed on Sina Weibo, the country’s version of Twitter.
Repeated requests for comment from the Chinese foreign ministry and Xinhua, which works directly under the jurisdiction of the Chinese cabinet, went unheeded on Sunday.
(With inputs from Sutirtho Patranobis in Beijing)

China begins demolition at Tibet’s Larung Gar Buddhist Institute
July 25, 2016
BBC, July 22, 2016 – Campaign groups say China has started demolishing buildings at Larung Gar, one of the largest centres of Buddhist learning in Tibet.
The London-based Free Tibet group says demolitions at the site began on Wednesday and a number of people living there have been evicted.
It follows an order last month by the local authorities to cut the number of Larung Gar residents by half to 5,000.
Chinese officials are reported to have cited overcrowding concerns.
Larung Gar is said to be the biggest Tibetan Buddhist institute in the world.
The academy and monastery, founded in 1980, sprawls over a mountainside in Sertar county in eastern Tibet, and attracts thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns who wish to study there.
The students commonly stay in log cabins and correspondents say the site has grown considerably in recent years.
Free Tibet published several pictures on Twitter and video footage on YouTube that appeared to show wooden buildings razed to the ground. Heavy equipment that could have been used for demolition was seen in some of the images.
The campaign group said the work team had been accompanied by Chinese police and members of the armed forces dressed in plain clothes.
There has been no formal comment by Chinese authorities.
A Sertar county government official contacted by Associated Press said the purpose of the work was to renovate rather than remove the buildings.
One student at Larung Gar was quoted by Free Tibet as saying: “If the only way to solve the overpopulation is destroying the houses, then why is the same policy not implemented in the Chinese cities and towns where the population is overcrowded?
“Where is the equality, rule by law, public welfare, religious freedom and equal rights of all nationalities (as they say) if you crush down the houses of innocent religious practitioners who are living simple lives?”
Chinese authorities have said Larung Gar’s population must be reduced from 10,000 to no more than 3,500 nuns and 1,500 monks by October.
Free Tibet director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren said: “The demolition at Larung Gar is clearly nothing to do with overcrowding – it is just another tactic in China’s attempt to subvert the influence of Buddhism in Tibet.”
Beijing claims a centuries-old sovereignty over the Himalayan region. Tibet has spent some of its history functioning as an independent entity and other periods ruled by Chinese and Mongolian dynasties.
China sent in thousands of troops to enforce its claim on the region in 1950. Some areas became the Tibetan Autonomous Region and others were incorporated into neighbouring Chinese provinces.
Beijing says Tibet has developed considerably under its rule. But rights groups say China continues to violate human rights, accusing Beijing of political and religious repression. Beijing denies any abuses.

China sets July 25 set as date for demolition of world’s largest Tibetan Buddhist institute
July 18, 2016
Lion’s Roar, July 14, 2016 – As previously reported by Lion’s Roar, Larung Gar, the largest Tibetan Buddhist institute in the world, situated in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, was recently threatened with demolitions by the Chinese government. Now, a date has been set.
Demolitions at Larung Gar Buddhist Academy will reportedly begin July 25th following China’s demands to demolish 50 percent of residences at the monastery.
According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), monastic leaders at the Academy are requesting residents remain calm and avoid interfering or protesting the demolitions, for fear of repercussions from the Chinese government.
The planned demolitions aim to reduce the monastery’s population, which is estimated at over 10,000 people, to a maximum of 5,000, displacing over half the monks and nuns currently living there.
An anonymous source told the RFA that the demolition crews will consist of Chinese soldiers and workers.
“It will begin with the nuns’ dwellings, as nine of those areas have been marked for action,” the source said.
Speculations arose that China’s demands stemmed from concerns for the monastery’s growing population and subsequent fire risks, but the only direct reason provided has been that the community is in need of “ideological guidance.” Larung Gar has previously been subjected to forced demolitions and evictions since it was founded in 1980.
A petition on change.org is still active and collecting signatures to stop the demolitions and evictions at Larung Gar.

Tibetan Buddhist nuns make history as the first ever to earn Geshema degrees
July 18, 2016
Tibetan Nuns Project, July 15, 2016 – Twenty Tibetan Buddhist nuns have just made history, becoming the first Tibetan women to successfully pass all the exams for the Geshema degree, equivalent to a Doctorate in Buddhist philosophy. Exam results were announced by the Department of Religion and Culture of the Central Tibetan Administration. All 20 candidates for the degree passed.
Their success fulfills a longstanding wish of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and marks a new chapter in the development of education for ordained Buddhist women and is a major accomplishment for Tibetan women.
The Geshema degree (a Geshe degree when awarded to men) is the highest level of training in the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. These women pioneers have accomplished a level of scholarship and Buddhist training that, until recently, was only open to men.
The Geshema examination process is an extremely rigorous one that takes four years in total, with one round per year each May. During the 12-day exam period, the nuns must take both oral (debate) and written exams. They are examined on the entirety of their 17-year course of study of the Five Great Canonical Texts. In 2011, a German nun, Kelsang Wangmo, who spent 21 years training in India, became the first female to receive the Geshema title.
The new Geshema nuns will formally receive their degrees from His Holiness the Dalai Lama at a special ceremony at Drepung Monastery in Mundgod in southern India.
This occasion is also a milestone for the Tibetan Nuns Project, which was founded in 1987 to provide education and humanitarian aid to Tibetan Buddhist nuns living in India. A number of the Geshema candidates were illiterate when they escaped from Tibet. To reach this historic milestone, the Tibetan Nuns Project had to build an educational system from the ground up.
“Educating women is powerful,” says Rinchen Khando Choegyal, Founder and Director of the Tibetan Nuns Project. “It’s not just about books. It is also about helping nuns acquire the skills they need to run their own institutions and create models for future success and expansion. It’s about enabling the nuns to be teachers in their own right and to take on leadership roles at a critical time in our nation’s history.”
Earning the Geshema degrees marks a turning point for the nuns. This degree will make them eligible to assume various leadership roles in the monastic and lay communities, previously reserved for men.
The Tibetan Nuns Project supports 7 nunneries in India as well as many nuns living on their own for a total of nearly 800 nuns. Many are refugees from Tibet, but the organization also reaches out to the Himalayan border areas of India where women and girls have had little access to education and religious training.

Nepalese police break up Dalai Lama birthday celebrations, detain 28
July 11, 2016
International Campaign for Tibet, July 7, 2016 – Nepalese police arrived in force at the Dalai Lama’s birthday celebration held at a school in Boudhanath, Kathmandu yesterday (July 6), even though official permission had been granted by the authorities for the event. Police told Tibetans to leave or risk detention, and detained 28 people including the Tibetan settlement officer Kalsang Dondrub in the nearby police station. A photograph posted online shows a Tibetan being led away by Nepalese police in riot gear from the event. Radio Free Asia reported that police also pulled down large portraits of the Dalai Lama that had been placed in positions of honor on a stage in the school’s courtyard, scattering banners, flowers, and other offerings that had been arranged at the site.
A Tibetan present at the event said: “It was very emotional, some people were crying. This showed a very ugly face of the Nepalese authorities; diplomats who had attended from the international community observed at close quarters how peacefully the Tibetans were celebrating this important religious and cultural occasion, and the outcome.” One of the Tibetan community leaders, Lhalung, was cited by RFA as saying: “The Tibetan representative and other welfare officers sought permission from Nepalese authorities to hold the event, and permission was granted yesterday. But today, they changed their minds and stopped us. This could be a result of pressure from China.”
Following intervention from Nepalese human rights advocates, the 28 people detained were released at around 5 pm. The Nepalese organisation Inhured, the International Institute for Human Rights, Environment and Development, issued a press release condemning the “unconstitutional and anti-human rights” actions of the police.).
A young Tibetan living in the Boudha area was cited by Tibetan media as saying: “Anyone who is wearing Tibetan dress or monastic robes is being detained in the vicinity. We were merely celebrating the birthday of our beloved leader, it is not political. Besides, the same police were smiling and accepting our help and donations during the earth quake last year when Tibetans and Nepalese people were working together for relief efforts in the aftermath. What was supposed to be a joyous occasion has turned into a sad one.”
In the context of a close relationship with the Chinese authorities, Nepalese police have varied in their tolerance of celebrations of the Dalai Lama’s birthday, an important and symbolic occasion for Tibetans. While last year a quiet celebration was allowed to take place, in 2011, several hundred Nepalese police in riot gear were deployed in various areas of Kathmandu on July 6 to prevent Tibetans from celebrating the Dalai Lama’s birthday, and they also confiscated pictures of the Dalai Lama and a Happy Birthday’ banner hanging inside a walled courtyard at Samten Ling monastery in the Boudha area of Kathmandu. The year before, in 2010, police set up checkpoints at different locations stopping Tibetans heading for the birthday celebrations.

European parliamentary group calls on EU leaders to raise Tibet during 18th EU-China Summit
July 11, 2016
Office of Tibet, Brussels, July 8, 2016 – In a letter addressed to the EU leaders, Mr. Thomas Mann, a German MEP and Chair of the cross-party Tibet Interest Group (TIG) in the European Parliament, thanked the EU for raising the issue of Tibet with her Chinese counter-part during the previous EU-China Summit on 29 June 2015 in Brussels.
“We are writing to draw the attention of the EU leaders on two important issues that are of immediate concern to us, which we would hope the EU leaders can address during the forthcoming 18th EU-China Summit on 12-13 July in Beijing, China”, said Mr. Mann on behalf of his group.
He highlighted the ongoing mining activities at Gong-ngon Lari, a Tibetan holy mountain site in Amchok in Eastern Tibet where local Tibetans have staged numerous peaceful protests calling for the cessation of the mining that were brutally suppressed by the Chinese authorities.
The second point raised in the letter was the demolition of Larung Gar Academy, the world’s largest monastic institution which consists of a population of at least 10,000 monks and laypeople, that the Chinese government plans to eliminate quarters for all but 5000 monks, nuns and laypeople by September 2017.
He requested the EU leaders’ immediate action to resolve the unsettling situation in the region and to raise these issues with the Chinese counter-part during the summit. And urged them to call on the Chinese leaders to observe it’s environmental laws, universal human rights and respect Tibetan people’s religious and cultural considerations in undertaking development projects in Tibet.
The EU-China Summit is held on an annual basis, alternating between Brussels and Beijing. The EU is represented by the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and China is represented by her Premier.

One Tibetan Killed, Another Presumed Dead in Sichuan’s Kardze
2016-07-01
A Tibetan man living in southwest China’s Sichuan province was beaten to death by police last month, as fears mount that a Tibetan nun missing for eight years after taking part in protests challenging Chinese rule may also have died in custody, Tibetan sources said.
Yudruk Nyima, aged about 40 and a resident of Dzakhok township in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture’s Dege (Dege) county, was detained by police after returning from a trip to collect cordyceps, a valuable medicinal fungus, a Tibetan living in India told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“He was detained on suspicion of possessing a gun at his home in Dzakhok,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity and citing contacts in his native Dege.
After being taken to a nearby village, Nyima was severely beaten by police who then tried to move him to the Dege county seat, the source said.
“However, he died on the way while still in police custody,” he said.
News of Nyima’s death was briefly delayed in reaching outside sources due to communications clampdowns imposed by Chinese authorities in the area.
Relatives rejected allegations that Nyima had owned a gun and have filed a complaint with local authorities over his death, the source said, adding that the case “has become a cause of tensions in the area.”
Losing hope
Family members of a young Tibetan nun detained in 2008 are meanwhile losing hope she may still be alive after receiving no word of her whereabouts since she was taken into custody, an India-based Tibetan rights group said this week.
Yeshe Lhakdron, a 25-year-old nun from Drakkar nunnery in Kardze prefecture’s Kardze county, was detained with two companions eight years ago after they called out in public for Tibetan freedom from Beijing’s rule, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) said on Thursday.
“Following their interrogation in police custody during which they were subjected to beatings and torture, the nuns were sent to a government hospital in Kardze County,” TCHRD said, adding that family members were not allowed to visit the nuns during their treatment in hospital.
Nurses at the hospital later said that one of the nuns had died there, and the other two—named Sangye Lhamo and Tsewang Khandro—were eventually released after serving two-year terms in prison, TCHRD said.
“But [Yeshe] Lhakdron never returned home,” the rights group said.
Lacking firm evidence of Lhakdron’s death, family members “are still struggling” to come to a conclusion regarding her fate, but have now conducted funeral rites for her at various monasteries, TCHRD said.
Government controls
Tibetans living in Kardze prefecture are known for their strong sense of Tibetan national identity and frequently stage protests alone or in groups opposing rule by Beijing.
Monasteries and nunneries in Kardze now operate under strict government controls and have been threatened with closure if they permit monks and nuns living there to engage in political activities, including unauthorized promotion of the study of the Tibetan language, a Tibetan resident of the area told RFA.
“[Also], if any monk or nun comes from other places to protest, they will not be allowed to return to their own institutions, and those monasteries must not accept them back,” the source said.
“These rules may be aimed at containing expressions of solidarity and support among monks and nuns in monasteries in different parts of Tibet,” he said.
Reported by Pema Ngodup and Sonam Wangdu for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

County Officials in Tibet Seize Land, Sell at a Profit to Developers
2016-07-07
Officials in an eastern county of China’s Tibet Autonomous Region are confiscating land at a low price from local Tibetans for re-sale at a profit to Chinese developers, meanwhile threatening to jail all those who refuse to sell, according to a local source.
The move by authorities in Riwoche (in Chinese, Leiwuqi) county in the TAR’s Chamdo (Changdu) prefecture is being made with the excuse that the land belongs to local government and the ruling Chinese Communist Party, a resident of the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“They offer compensation at a nominal rate of 25 yuan [$ U.S. 3.74] per square meter of land, with anyone refusing to sign on these terms threatened with jail time,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The same piece of land could easily bring from 1,500 to 2,000 yuan [$ U.S. 224.57 to 299.42] in the current market,” the source said.
Land taken from Tibetans at the low rate is then sold to Chinese developers at a profit, the source said, adding that newly built apartments are being sold back at high prices to the Tibetans from whom the land was first taken.
“These officials are secretly colluding with the builders to make profits at the common people’s expense,” he said.
Few were told
Word of the development project was first given two months ago at a time when few members of the public would hear of the scheme and object to it, the source said.
“Riwoche county officials called a meeting of local Tibetans at the end of May and announced their intention to take over the land for development,” he said.
“But they held the meeting at a time when most of the area’s Tibetan residents were away in the hills collecting cordyceps,” a valuable medicinal fungus, he said.
Officials told Tibetans that anyone refusing to accept the offered compensation would be jailed, warning further that anyone going to Beijing to plead their case with central government authorities would also be jailed on their return.
Calls seeking comment from Riwoche county offices rang unanswered on Thursday.
Chinese development projects in Tibetan areas have led to frequent standoffs with Tibetans who accuse Chinese firms and local officials of improperly seizing land and disrupting the lives of local people.
Many result in violent suppression, the detention of protest organizers, and intense pressure on the local population to comply with the government’s wishes.
Reported by RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.