Dharamsala: Chinese govt condemned for 'religious repression'

Dharamsala, June 21

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has condemned the Chinese government for self-immolation by a Tibetan monk.

In a press note issued here today, it was stated that an unidentified Tibetan monk was forced to take his own life in May this year amid a widespread crackdown on Tibetan monastic institutions in the Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, in the Tibetan province of Amdo.

The organisation claimed that at the time of his death, the monk was in retreat at his residence in Khagya township, which comes under the jurisdiction of the prefectural capital of Tsoe City. Exile Tibetan sources reported that the monk had self-immolated in front of a portrait of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to protest the widespread crackdown on Tibetan Buddhist institutions in the prefecture.

The crackdown, conducted under the direction of Yang Wu, the Governor and deputy party secretary of Kanlho prefecture, involved tightening of control on monasteries, intimidation of devotees, and forced entries into sacred religious spaces such as violating the spiritual practice of monks in retreat.

The Human rights centre claimed that exile Tibetan sources also reported that the deceased monk’s family members had been taken to Tsoe city and detained at an undisclosed location on the pretext that they were infected with Covid.