A listing of the top news developments in and around Tibet during the previous week.

 

Dalai Lama’s visit to Mongolia draws enormous crowds

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama in Mongolia (Photo: dalailama.com)


His Holiness the Dalai Lama spent four days in Mongolia in late November, prompting huge crowds at his public events. The Dalai Lama gave religious teachings, participated in a Buddhism and Science conference, and visited Buddhist monasteries in Ulaan Baatar, the landlocked Asian country’s capital. The visit, which took place despite China’s objections, led ICT Vice President Bhuchung K. Tsering to write about the long cultural and religious ties between Tibet and Mongolia on our blog.

China tightens restrictions in Tibet ahead of Dalai Lama teaching

Chinese troops in Tibet

Chinese troops in Tibet


Chinese authorities have tightened controls on Tibetans, in some areas going from house to house to confiscate people’s passports, in advance of a major religious ceremony to be held by the Dalai Lama in India. The restrictions are reminiscent of sweeping measures imposed during and after the 2012 Kalachakra taught by the Dalai Lama in Bodh Gaya, when hundreds of Tibetans returning to Tibet were detained and imprisoned for political ‘re-education’, with some disappearing for many months without families being informed of their whereabouts.

Two young Tibetan women stage peaceful demonstration with Dalai Lama image in Ngaba

protestTwo young Tibetan women staged a bold and peaceful demonstration on November 15 in Ngaba county town. The two women were filmed walking calmly down the street, dressed in traditional Tibetan chubas, bearing photographs of the Dalai Lama aloft and calling “Long live the Dalai Lama!”

No information is yet known of their identity, although footage is circulating online of their demonstration. Two Kirti monks in exile in Dharamsala, India, said: “We have not heard from anyone who saw them being arrested, but we know that the local authorities in Ngaba have never ever spared any peaceful demonstrators in the streets since 2008. Even on the remote chance that they weren’t arrested at the time, armed forces would be deployed to hunt down those protesters. Tensions are still very high in Ngaba.”

Chinese authorities expel elderly monks and nuns from Larung Gar monastery

Larung GarAs reported by Radio Free Asia, the Chinese Communist Party-led effort to remove thousands of monks and nuns from Larung Gar is now pursuing the expulsion of elderly Buddhist practitioners:

Chinese authorities working to reduce the size of Sichuan’s Larung Gar Buddhist Academy are now targeting the center’s older monks and nuns for removal, meanwhile sparing the houses of Han Chinese lay members from destruction, sources say.

Demolition crews have not yet finished their work of tearing down monastic dwellings, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

Authorities continue to harass residents by pasting information on political reeducation programs and other official notices on their doors, though, the source said.

Many of Larung Gar’s older monks and nuns have now also been expelled, the source said.

“Many who came to Larung Gar at an early age have now reached their 70s, and many have been forced to leave,” he said.


Nyima Lhamo, niece of late Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, testifies before the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights

Nyima Lhamo spoke about the death of her uncle and the ongoing issue of Tibetans being brutally tortured in Chinese prisons:

While growing up in Tibet it was common to hear such sad instances of Tibetans dying in Chinese prisons without justice being done to them. I know there are many other Tibetans who continue to face the same fate as my uncle. So with a lot of difficulties and hardship I escaped Tibet but for a very important reason; to share the suffering of my late uncle Tenzin Delek Rinpoche and that of other political prisoners in Tibet, who continue to suffer under the repressive Chinese rule.

The rest of her statement is available here.