Tibetan Uprising

According to monks at Kirti Monastery in Dharamsala, Chinese security forces raided 6 monasteries in North-Eastern Tibet on March 28^th. The monasteries included Ngaba Kirti Monastery, Ngatue Amdu Monastery, Gomang Monastery, Dongri Monastery, and Tsennyi Monastery, all in Amdo Ngawa county (Ch: Aba Xian), and Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastery in Dzoege county, Ngaba TAP, Sichuan Province.

The security forces reportedly staged and videotaped scenes of the Kirti Monastery monks in their rooms holding up portraits of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan national flag. A small monk was forced to hide half his body underneath the wooden floorboards and made to place his hands on the keyboard of a lap top computer. One of the monks managed to make a secret phone call to the Kirti monks in Dharamsala, saying, “I am worried that the CCP is creating false evidence to try to show that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the mastermind behind the protests in Tibet. The security forces forced us to act out these scenes against our will with guns pointed at us. I appeal to the people of the world, do not be persuaded by these fake videos.”

The Kirti Monastery monks in Dharamsala report that, from March 28 to 30^th, around 572 monks including 10-year-old monks were arbitrarily arrested from their brother monastery in Amdo. On the morning of March 30^th, 80 PRC staff members with security forces raided the monk’s rooms, confiscating knives, arrows, and antique guns that were on display in the chapel of the monastery’s protector deity. These items are ancient traditional offerings to the protectors, and symbolize the overcoming of obstacles and negative emotions, however Chinese state-run media Xinhua claimed that these items were evidence of monks taking up arms.

On March 29^th, around 17 monks of Taksting Lhamo Kirti Monastery in Dzoege county were also arbitrarily arrested.

The whereabouts of the monks who have been arrested are unknown.