Reportage – 2008

China arrests over hundred monks in Ngaba

MCLEOD GANJ, India, 29 March 2008 — Posters showing Tibetans who were killed by Chinese forces during demonstrations in Ngaba in Sichuan province are hung in the streets of Mcleod Ganj. Tibetans were waiting to welcome the Dalai Lama from Delhi. [ click here for print size   3.5M ]

DHARAMSHALA, India, 29 March 2008 Over a hundred monks from Kirti monastery in Ngaba have reportedly been arrested by the Chinese police, following the recent anti-government protests in the area.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) said that the Chinese police raided the monastery on Friday afternoon and arrested over a hundred monks from Ngaba Kirti Monastery, an ethnic Tibetan area now incorporated into Sichuan province of China.

The police first locked the monks in their cells, and then searched for photographs of the Dalai Lama and any incriminating documents.

After the raid, at around 5:00 p.m. (Beijing Standard Time) at least a hundred monks were forcibly taken away by the armed forces to Ngaba County Detention Centre.

TCHRD says that the current atmosphere inside the Kirti Monastery is said to be tense and volatile.

The police have reportedly erected sandbag barricades around the monastery and surrounding areas to curb any fresh outbreak of protests by the Tibetans.

Led by monks, thousands of ethnic Tibetans in the area protested for several days since 15 March, resulting in deaths of at least 23 Tibetans, with many injured and arrested.

Photographs obtained by exile Tibetans of many of those killed in Ngaba were quickly published on websites, projected on screen during public gatherings, and exhibited in the streets of Dharamshala (the base of the Tibetan government-in-exile), countering Chinese claims of no casualties in the area.

Lhasa (the capital of Tibet) and other ethnic Tibetan areas have been under turmoil with protests against the Chinese government since 10 March, the day marking the 1959 Tibetan uprising against the Chinese invasion of Tibet.

The unrest spread to other ethnic Tibetan areas in Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces. China puts the death figure at 19 people in the riots, while the Tibetan government-in-exile says at least 140 people have died in the clashes.

The protests have greatly damaged China's image ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in August. On Thursday a staged trip for foreign journalists was disrupted by monks of Ramoche temple in Lhasa, painting an even worse picture for China, and fueling greater international criticism and call for change.