Additional Details Emerge on Religious Crackdown in Lhasa

Police in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), interrupted a July prayer session at one of Lhasa's principle monasteries, "fired" the presiding monastic official, and subjected him to one year of surveillance (see Criminal Procedure Law, Chapter VI), according to a November 18 Radio Free Asia (RFA) report. Jangchub Gyaltsen, a "disciplinarian" at Sera Monastery who was responsible for ensuring that monks adhere to monastic rules, was reading aloud a prayer request that a Tibetan worshipper asked another Sera monk, Tsering Dondrub, to write. Public security officials heard Jangchub Gyaltsen read a reference to the Dalai Lama and seized the paper slip from him, according to an RFA source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Sera officials (probably members of Sera's Democratic Management Committee) expelled Jangchub Gyaltsen from the monastery. Tsering Dondrub "disappeared" after the incident, but monks heard later that police detained him in July and held him at the Lhasa PSB Detention Center (Gutsa). Authorities at the detention center accepted food and clothing that relatives left for him, but no further information about him is available. Police allegedly accused Tsering Dondrub of possessing and distributing documents that criticized Chinese "rule over traditionally Tibetan areas" and "advocated Tibetan independence," according to RFA's source.

The incident coincided with the end of a three-month session of patriotic education at Sera during which officials reportedly expelled 18 monks, of whom police detained 8, according to an October 13 report by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). Whether or not those totals include Jangchub Gyaltsen and Tsering Dondrub is unknown. According to TCHRD, during the session officials required the monks to study six texts in preparation for examinations: "Handbook of History of Tibet," "Handbook on Crushing the Separatists," "Handbook of Policies on Religion," "Handbook on Law," "Handbook of Contemporary Policies," and "Handbook on Ethics for the Masses."

The 2005 patriotic education campaign is similar to the intensive five-year patriotic campaign that Chinese authorities began in 1996. The Office for the Propagation of Patriotic Education in Monasteries Throughout the Tibet Autonomous Region issued a four-volume set of texts in 1996 that monks and nuns were required to study, according to Tibet Information Network (TIN News Review No. 25: Reports from Tibet 1996, March 1997, 53.). The 1996 titles are similar to the current texts: "No. 1: Brief Explanation and Proclamation on Tibetan History," "No. 2: Brief Explanation and Proclamation on Opposing Splittism," "No. 3: Brief Explanation and Proclamation on Knowledge about the Law," and "No. 4: Brief Explanation and Proclamation on Religious Policy." Officials detained at least 13 monks during a three-month patriotic education course at Sera in 1996, according to a TIN report ("Re-education Drive: Sera Monks Issue Statement - Arrests Rise to 13," September 18, 1996).

Authorities have detained or imprisoned 42 Sera monks since 1988, based on information in the CECC Political Prisoner Database (PPD). Patriotic education was a factor in all 11 of the 1996 cases recorded in the database. The level of political activism by Sera monks appears to have decreased significantly, based on a comparison of the 18 detentions resulting from political expression or activism between 1991-1995 (before the 1996 patriotic education course at Sera) and the three detentions between 2000 and 2004. According to available PPD information, no detentions at Sera were recorded after 2001.

Unlike in 1996, when political protests by Tibetans were more frequent and the number of Tibetan political prisoners was more than five times higher (see CECC 2005 Annual Report, p. 112), Chinese authorities launched the 2005 patriotic education campaign at a time when available information suggests that overt political activism by Tibetans has declined and there are fewer new cases of political imprisonment. The 2005 campaign risks increasing resentment among Tibetans against the Chinese government's policy on religion.