Source: TGiE; TGiE; TGiE; RFA

Details: D; L; V; Ve

Around 20 Tibetans reportedly confronted Chinese police on June 22, 2009 as they attempted to take two ethnically Tibetan local government officials into detention in Jomda (Chinese: Jiangda) county in Chamdo (Chinese: Changdu) prefecture in the TAR.

The two officials, Gyurmey Gonpo and Gyaltsang Dorjee, were reportedly being detained because they had failed to summon monks at Taklung monastery in Jomda county for “patriotic education” despite repeatedly being ordered to ensure that monks attended the sessions. Sources claim there had been no monks at Taklung monastery for over a month, with all of them absconding rather than participate in the “patriotic education” activities. RFA reported that monks at numerous monasteries in the area had been leaving specifically to avoid “patriotic education,” and that in response the authorities gave notice that all monasteries had to comply with “patriotic education” by June 18, or face closure.  

According to TGiE’s initial report on the incident, many of the 20 Tibetans who confronted police on June 22 were injured, and five of them were taken into custody in Jomda county town, named as: Ashag Tsang Norlha, aged 47, Gonpo Dhargye, 44, Gyaltsang Jampa, 46, Bhulhuk, 56, and Mutsa Tsang Tseten, 40.

Local residents then gathered in numbers to demand the release of all those who had been detained, but police reportedly responded by attacking and beating the protestors with rifle butts and batons. As one consequence, the heads of several families in one of the villages nearby were summoned to government offices where they were required to denounce the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa Lama -- this is the first known instance of Tibetans being required to denounce the Karmapa Lama, the head of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, who fled Tibet in 1999 aged 14 in frustration at restrictions placed on his religious studies.

Three of the five detained on June 22, Gyaltsen Jampa, Bhulhuk and Mutsa Tsang Tseten, were later transferred to a detention center in the prefectural capital in Chamdo county, and on August 4, 2009, they were each sentenced to two years imprisonment. RFA reported their source as saying that police had originally intended to release the three men without charge, but “their attitude toward Chinese officials caused them to be transferred to Chamdo.”

According to TGiE’s August 13, 2009 report, the remaining two detainees – Ashag Tsang Norlha and Gonpo Dhargye – were regarded by the Chinese authorities as “ringleaders” in the incident, and were still awaiting a verdict and sentence.

TGiE later reported that the wife of Gonpo Dhargye had been staging a sit-in protest for several days starting on August 20 outside Jomda county police station demanding her husband’s immediate release. (See: TAR 090820 Jomda.) (However, in that report, Gonpo Dhargye was described as one of the local officials, and not as one of the five people from among the 20 who confronted police on June 22.)