Details are trickling out on arbitrary detentions of more monks amid an ongoing crackdown in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba) County, the site of most number of self-immolations in Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.
A senior Tibetan monk who went missing for eight months since his arbitrary arrest last October has been sentenced to seven years in prison for ‘sharing pictures of nun Tenzin Wangmo and information related to her self-immolation protest with outsider’ by an Intermediate People’s Court in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.
The sentence was passed on 18 June 2012 by an Intermediate People’s Court in Ngaba Prefecture.
The charges leveled against Yonten Gyatso, 37, a monk who had held various official posts at his Khashi Monastery in Ngaba County also included “sharing information since 2008 about political events in Tibet by attempting to make telephone calls to human rights mechanisms of the UN”, a source tells TCHRD.
Hundreds of armed forces, particularly the People’s Armed Police, were deployed at the immensely popular annual horse-racing festival at Machu (Chinese: Maqu) county in Kanlho (Chinese: Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, on 12 August this year, as local authorities were apprehensive of Tibetans staging protests and self-immolations at the public event.
Five young monks were detained during night-time raids at Gyalrong Tsodun Monastery in Barkham (Chinese: Ma’erkang) County in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.
A mother of three who died of self-immolation on 30 May 2012 left behind a note calling on fellow Tibetans to cultivate merit andpreserve Tibetan culture for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet before setting herself on fire.
Two Tibetans were sentenced to four years and two years’ prison terms on unknown dates in connection with protests that occurred in January 2012 in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba) County in Ngaba Tibetan and QiangAutonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.
Logya, 33, a layman from Meruma township in Ngaba was sentenced tofour years in prison for carrying a portrait of the Dalai Lama and leading a protest march on 23 January 2012 in Ngaba, a reliable source told TCHRD.
After participating in the protests that swept a large part ofTibetan areas in Sichuan Province on 23 January 2012, Logya alongwith 24-yr-old Choepa managed to evade arrest in the hands of Chinesesecurity officers for sometime. Logya was soon arrested at Mematownship in Machu County, Kanlho (Chinese: Gannan) TibetanAutonomousPrefecture, Gansu Province.
Taking the toll of self-immolation protests to three in less than a week, one more Tibetan, a young Tibetan nomad, set himself on fire in Meruma township in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba), Sichuan Province this morning.
“A 24-year old Tibetan man, Choepa set himself ablaze at 10:15 (local time) today in protest against the Chinese government, and the local security officers arrived within minutes and doused the fire on his body, and forcibly took him away,” a reliable source told TCHRD.
Ngawang Norphel, a lay Tibetan who self-immolated on 20 June 2012 passed away on 1 August 2012, more than one month after setting himself on fire, and his family is now being threatened and investigated by the Chinese authorities in Tibet.
“Ngawang Norphel died in a Chinese hospital in Amdo Ngaba (Ch: Aba) region of Tibet day before yesterday,” Tenzin Phegyel, who lives in exile in Dharamsala and is the uncle of deceased Norphel told TCHRD today. Phegyel said that Norphel’s father forcibly taken by Chinese security officers to the hospital where Norphel was admitted amidst tight security.
In protest against the Chinese government on 20 June 2012, Ngawang Norphel, 21 along with Tenzin Khedup, 24, had set themselves on ablaze in Zatoe (Chinese: Zaduo) County of Jyekundo (Chinese: Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the Tibetan province of Kham in present-day Qinghai Province.
The propaganda chief of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) has, in a speech at a seminar held on 11 July 2012 in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, emphasized the importance of ‘strengthening the concept of confidentiality, enhancing the sense of confidentiality, adherence to the discipline of confidentiality and
A monk at Kirti Monastery in Ngaba (Chinese: Aba) Prefecture, Sichuan Province has ‘disappeared’ since his arbitrary arrest last month.
Lobsang Tsering, aged 21, was arrested on 26 June 2012 at his monastery by the Public Security Bureau personnel from Ngaba Prefecture. Since his arrest, Lobsang’s family and relatives have approached relevant security offices in the region enquiring about his whereabouts and condition but to no avail. It is not known on what charges Lobsang Tsering was arrested and where he is being held and in what condition.
A Tibetan monk who went missing for eight months after his arrest has been sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment.
According to information received by sources in the first week of July 2012, Lodoe, a 36-yr-old monk from Kirti Monastery in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) Prefecture, Sichuan Province, was sentenced to 3 years’ in prison by an Intermediate People’s Court in Barkham.
Lodoe’s whereabouts remained unknown since his arbitrary arrest around 20 October 2011 at his monastery in Ngaba.
Sources tell TCHRD that family members and relatives of Lodoe were neither informed nor invited to witness the trial that had supposedly taken place prior to the sentencing.