China seals off restive Tibetan monastery, reports say

Apr 13, 2011, 3:24 GMT

Beijing - Paramilitary police have surrounded a Tibetan Buddhist monastery whose monks were involved in several recent protests, holding hundreds of people inside the compound in south-western China's Sichuan province, exiled Tibetan support groups reported Wednesday.

A standoff began early Monday after rumours that the local government planned to take away younger monks on Wednesday for 're-education' prompted lay Tibetans to gather near the Kirti monastery in Sichuan's Ngaba area, the US-based International Campaign for Tibet and other groups said.

The authorities had announced recently that monks aged 18 to 40 would be sent away from Kirti, raising suspicions among Tibetans, the reports said.

The Tibetans tried to block the entrance to the monastery when they saw paramilitary officers arriving around midday Monday.

The police responded by 'beating the crowd and setting trained dogs on them, and there were serious injuries,' the ICT quoted exiled Tibetans with contacts in Kirti as saying.

The crowd held back the police but the confrontation flared up again later Monday afternoon when monks and lay Tibetans tried to push their way out of the monastery.

US-based Radio Free Asia carried a similar report of the incident, quoting two exiled Tibetan monks with contacts in Ngaba.

The authorities sealed the gates and those inside were unable to cross the triple ring of walls and barbed-wire fences surrounding the monastery, the reports said.

The blockade left the monastery's estimated 2,500 monks facing a potential food shortage since they normally depend on offerings brought in daily by local Tibetans, the India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights for Democracy said.

The centre said police had detained at least 33 Tibetans in Ngaba this month, releasing 11 of them.

Police had also set up surveillance posts around the monastery and prevented people from walking the pilgrimage path outside it, it said.

'The authorities have now imposed a lockdown on the monastery,' the ICT said.

'All movement of monks is restricted and monks are even being prevented from burning incense for religious rituals,' it said, adding that several more Tibetans had disappeared in the last few days.

Tibetans had clashed with security forces last month after the self-immolation of a young Kirti monk on March 16.

The monk, identified by the single name Phuntsok, died of burns the next day, Chinese state media confirmed.

Another monk from Kirti, identified as Tapey, had set himself alight in Ngaba in February 2009 to protest authorities' restrictions on celebrating a prayer festival.

The whereabouts of Tapey remained unknown since he was arrested by police, reports said.

Tensions have simmered in Ngaba since March 2008, when police admitted that they shot four Tibetans during violent anti-Chinese protests in the county town.

Exile groups alleged that police killed up to 39 Tibetans in Ngaba.

In its annual human rights report on China last week, the US State Department said Tibetans continued to face 'severe repression.'

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