Five Drepung Monks Detained During Patriotic Education, Prompting Silent Protest

January 26, 2006

Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), detained five monks from the Drepung monastery, the urban area's largest, on November 23, according to November 29 reports by Radio Free Asia (RFA) and the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD).

Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), detained five monks from the Drepung monastery, the urban area's largest, on November 23, according to November 29 reports by Radio Free Asia (RFA) and the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). The monks refused instructions from officials conducting "patriotic education" at Drepung to sign a document denouncing the Dalai Lama as a separatist, pledging loyalty to the Chinese government, and agreeing that Tibet is part of China, according to TCHRD. Drepung officials, who probably were members of the monastery’s Democratic Management Committee, expelled the monks from the monastery and handed them over to the PSB. Abbot Ngawang Phelgyal, one of the detained monks, reportedly explained to the instructors that the monks rejected the notion of condemnation of the Tibetan spiritual leader. The abbot said that if instructors had instead ordered the monks to condemn Chinese leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, they would also refuse, according to an RFA source. The other detained monks are Ngawang Namdrol, Ngawang Nyingpo, Ngawang Thubten, and Phuntsog Thubwang, according to a November 30 TCHRD report.The TCHRD report implies that the PSB may be holding each monk in the county where the monk's family lives, but RFA reports that no further details were available.

Two days later, Drepung monks ("over 400" according to TCHRD; "an unknown number," according to RFA) gathered in Drepung's main courtyard and protested together silently against the patriotic education campaign and the accompanying crackdown. "PSB officials threatened to remove them by force and sealed the monastery to prevent anyone from entering or leaving," according to RFA sources. A monastery official who RFA contacted said that the monastery had closed for two days so that PSB officials and People's Armed Police could conduct "fire drills" and the "annual inspection of cultural items," and that the monastery had reopened. TCHRD alleges that when police "quelled" the protest, "resisting monks received severe beatings." The RFA report does not mention police violence against the protestors, and additional information is not available about any consequences of the protest. Public protests by Tibetans against Chinese government policies have become rare following a more turbulent period from the late 1980s to mid-1990s (see CECC 2005 Annual Report, p. 47).

Authorities began the patriotic education campaign in the Lhasa area in April. PSB officers reportedly detained 8 of 13 Sera Monastery monks whom monastic officials expelled in July, when the monks were to be tested. At about the same time, PSB officers subjected a Sera "disciplinarian" to one year of surveillance and detained another monk for their roles in arranging an oral reading of a prayer that mentioned the Dalai Lama. A Drepung monk apparently committed suicide in October after he argued with patriotic education instructors, according to speculation by monks who discovered his body.