Tibetan monks 'march against prayer ban'
Defiant Buddhist monks banned from marking a key Tibetan new year prayer festival marched in protest in south-west China, human rights groups said today.
The march was the latest resistance to Chinese rule before sensitive anniversaries in Tibet.
Tensions are high over harsh security measures set up before the new year, which began on February 25. The Monlam prayer festival started on Saturday and ends on March 11.
The usually merry atmosphere has been largely subdued since the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, said celebrations would be “inappropriate” after deadly anti-government riots in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, last March led to a crackdown on protesters throughout the region.
Also approaching is the March 10 anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising that sent the Dalai Lama into exile.
Many Tibetans have reportedly heeded the call to boycott this year’s festivities.
The latest protest began Sunday morning – the second day of Monlam – when Chinese officials stopped the monks at the Sey monastery in Sichuan province as they gathered to pray, the International Campaign for Tibet said, citing unidentified sources. The monks left the prayer hall and started walking toward the main town, shouting to be allowed to pray, ICT said.
A few minutes later, armed security officials arrived and the monks returned to their lamasery, the Washington DC-based rights group said in a statement.
ICT’s sources said about 600 monks were involved in the latest protest, while another rights group, Students for a Free Tibet, said 50 monks took part.
“They are now surrounded by armed police personnel and are likely to be under lockdown after the protest,” ICT said.
An official surnamed Nong at the Communist Party’s propaganda office in Aba county said today that “no such thing happened”.
Another official at the party’s propaganda office in Aba prefecture, which oversees the area, said he had not heard about the incident.
Several Aba residents and hotel clerks who answered calls said they had not seen anything.
Information on politically sensitive topics like Tibet is difficult to obtain from authorities and ordinary citizens, who often fear official retaliation if they talk.
The region is sealed off to journalists and foreigners for the new year period, and the presence of paramilitary police has noticeably increased in Tibetan communities in western China in recent days.
Tibet’s self-proclaimed government-in-exile in Dharmsala, India, confirmed that the protest occurred but said no details were available.
“It’s sad,” said spokesman Thupten Samphel. “These actions show the religious intolerance shown by the Chinese authorities.”
Last week, a monk from the nearby Kirti monastery in Aba was reportedly shot after setting himself on fire to protest at the prayer ban and restrictions on religion. It was not immediately clear who shot him.
Chinese authorities denied that police had been involved in the shooting, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
China banned the Monlam prayer festival during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, when most religious practices were outlawed. The week-long ceremony, also known as the Great Prayer Festival, was prohibited again in 1990, the year after Beijing launched a crackdown on anti-government protests in Tibet.
Despite the tensions, China insists Tibet has benefited from its rule. Yesterday the Cabinet released a government paper that said Beijing’s defeat of the 1959 pro-independence uprising brought much-needed political reform.
“Without the democratic reform, there would have been no emancipation of the labourers constituting 95% of the Tibetan population, no frog-leaping social progress and human rights development ... and no happy life for all the ethnic groups in Tibet today,” it said.
