Tibetans and Buddhist leaders in northern India on Wednesday participated in a march to show their solidarity with Tibetans in southwestern China’s Sichuan province arrested for peacefully protesting the planned construction of a dam.
A Chinese government official of Tibetan ethnicity who approved the destruction of a huge Buddha statue died after falling from the fifth floor of a mall in Chengdu, according to a statement issued by local Chinese authorities and two sources inside Tibet.
Chinese authorities have forbidden the admission of new monks of all ages into a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Chamdo prefecture in eastern Tibet amid growing restrictions on religious activities in the country, two sources familiar with the development told Radio Free Asia.
China has sentenced four Tibetans from Sertar county in Sichuan province to two years in prison each for engaging in religious activities — the second time they have been arrested and given jail time, said two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation.
A Tibetan writer who wrote a book that criticized Chinese rule in Tibet has been released from prison after serving a four-year sentence for “creating disorder among the public,” a Tibetan source told Radio Free Asia.
When she was just 13, Ngawang Sangdrol was arrested for protesting Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule in Tibet. She spent more than a decade in prison before international pressure led to her release in 2002.
Tearing down tents and destroying a colorful sand mandala, Chinese authorities on Wednesday stopped a gathering where a Tibetan Buddhist lama was scheduled to preach – and tried to block online photos and descriptions of the incident, two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation said.
Periodically prostrating himself, a Tibetan Buddhist monk pulling a cart with food and bedding has completed a pilgrimage of more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) over eight months to Dharamsala, India.
Chinese authorities in Tibet are randomly searching monasteries and forcing monks to sign documents renouncing all ties to the “separatist” Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s foremost spiritual leader, Tibetan sources living in exile told Radio Free Asia.
Chinese authorities began searching homes in the Tibetan capital Lhasa this month to determine whether Tibetans are accessing foreign radio and TV programs via satellite dishes, city police and two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation said.