Dharamshala, 9th January: According to RFA, Chinese officials in Sichuan province are arresting Tibetan monks and assaulting them on suspicion of informing outsiders about the destruction of a 99-foot tall Buddha monument in the country’s Luhuo county (Drago). According to Tibetan reports quoted by Radio Free Asia (RFA), the Buddha monument in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Region was demolished in December by officials who said it was erected too high.
The RFA website also claimed that local monastery monks and other Tibetan people were forced to witness the damage, which experts described as part of a larger push to erase Tibet’s unique national culture and religion. Eleven monks from Drago’s Gaden Namgyal Ling monastery have been arrested on suspicion of disseminating news and images of the statue’s demolition to connections outside the province.
“As of now, we have learned that Lhamo Yangkyi, Tsering Samdrup, and four other Tibetans have been arrested for communicating outside Tibet,” RFA stated on the website citing its source in Drago, Tibet. And a few days before the demolition of the statue began, Abbot Pelga, his assistant Nyima, and the monks Tashi Dorje and Nyima from the monastery in Drago were taken into custody, with Chinese authorities saying they needed to be taught a lesson.”
As per RFA their source claimed that the officers abused the monks and denied them food while they were imprisoned. They have mercilessly beaten one of the monks, severely injuring one of his eyes. Following the arrest of monks for spreading the word of monument removal, Sophie Richardson, China director for Human Rights Watch in New York, stated that religious believers in China cannot rely on legal or constitutional guarantees to protect their beliefs. Richardson also stated that Beijing’s present phase of “ultranationalist and statist ideology” gives the state full power and views civil society with distrust and contempt.
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