Source: RFA; TCHRD;

Details: F; M; V

On March 25, 2009, Phuntsok Rabten, a monk from Drango monastery in Drango (Chinese: Luhuo) county in Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi) prefecture, was beaten to death by police officers who had chased him as he tried to evade capture on a motorbike. Phuntsok had pasted several leaflets on the walls of the Drango county police station, along a bridge and on trees lining the main road into the county town, with slogans marking the one year anniversary of protests at Drango monastery when hundreds of monks were detained, beaten and tortured.

Phuntsok Rabten was in the process of pasting leaflets on the wall of an automobile repair shop when he was seen by police. He attempted to flee on a motorbike, off-road and up a steep hill, where police caught up with him. He was reportedly beaten to death on the spot, but police officers then threw his corpse from a cliff to try and simulate a suicide. RFA reported that monks from Drango monastery retrieved Phuntsok Rabten’s body from the foot of the cliff and then descended on the police station to vent their anger. They had reportedly intended to parade his remains through the town, but were dissuaded from doing to by senior monks at the monastery.

Phuntsok Rabten’s leaflets also reportedly urged Tibetans to participate in the farming boycott in the area, a popular movement intended to highlight the fact that so many people in the area had been detained or had disappeared in the wake of the protests in March 2008 and beyond, and that consequently there simply weren’t enough able-bodied people available to work the land.

One of Phuntsok Rabten's leaflets seen by an ICT source read: “We Tibetans must have solidarity and mourn those brothers and sisters who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of our county during the military crackdown that has been going on since March 10 throughout all of Tibet. Tibetan people in Drango county will give up farming this year, even if we starve to death.” (INS 090331-3:45.)