The Chinese government is arresting Tibetan monks and assaulting them in Sichuan province on suspicion of leaking information about the destruction of a 99-foot-tall Buddha statue in the country’s Luhuo county (Drago). According to Tibetan reports cited by Radio Free Asia (RFA), officials in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Region demolished the Buddha monument in December for being too high.
Tibetan monks and other Tibetan people were forced to witness the damage, which experts described as part of a larger effort to erase Tibet’s unique national culture and religion. Eleven monks from Drago’s Gaden Namgyal Ling monastery have been arrested on suspicion of leaking news and pictures of the statue’s demolition to contacts outside the province, reported RFA.
According to RFA, contacts in Drago told the agency that Lhamo Yangkyi, Tsering Samdrup, and four other Tibetans were arrested for communicating outside Tibet. The source claims that the statue was desecrated a few days earlier. Abbot Pelga, his aide Nyima, and the monks Tashi Dorje and Nyima from Drago monastery were apprehended. Chinese officials have stated that a lesson needs to be taught to them, according to the source. Further, he stated that the officers abused the monks and denied them food while they were imprisoned. One of the monks was mercilessly beaten, leaving him with a severely damaged eye.
In response to the arrest of monks for spreading news of monument removal, Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch in New York, stated that religious believers cannot rely on legal or constitutional protections to safeguard their beliefs. In his report RFA cited Richardson as saying that Beijing during its current phase of ‘ultranationalist and statist ideology’ gives all power to the state, and regards civil society with suspicion and contempt.
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