54. China cracks down on Tibet monks after protest

By Lindsay Beck BEIJING, Dec 1 (Reuters)

Several Tibetan monks have been detained for opposition to a Chinese political campaign they were forced to participate in, sparking a rare mass protest, two advocacy groups said on Thursday. The Dharamsala-based Center for Human Rights and Democracy said five monks at the Drepung monastery, on the outskirts of the capital Lhasa, were expelled from the monastery and detained after refusing to sign a document denouncing the Dalai Lama as a separatist. In protest, more than 400 monks staged a sit-in in Drepung's main courtyard on November 25, refusing to denounce the Dalai Lama and accept that Tibet is a part of China and calling for the release of the five monks. The Dalai Lama, the Buddhist spiritual leader of Tibet, has lived in exile in the Indian town of Dharamsala since fleeing after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, nine years after Communist troops invaded the remote, mountainous region. He has since been branded a traitor by Beijing but he is still revered in Tibet as a god-king despite a government system that enforces political study alongside religion to keep the monasteries in check. "According to reports from Tibet, monks at Drepung expressed resistance last week to the denunciations of the Dalai Lama required during the patriotic education campaigns," the International Campaign for Tibet, based in Washington D.C., said in a statement. The army, police and security personnel quashed the protest and monks who resisted were beaten, the Dharamsala group said, adding that no one had been allowed in or out of the monastery since. The director general of the Information Office in Tibet said he was unaware of any unrest. "We haven't heard of it and if it really happened like you said, the related departments will go to investigate. But we are not clear about the situation so far," Thondrup Dorje said by telephone from Lhasa. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang could not confirm the reports. "I must emphasize, China is a country ruled by law and acts in accordance with the law," Qin told a news conference. SECURITY TIGHTENED The political campaign and crackdown on the monks coincides with a trip to China by Manfred Nowak, the U.N. envoy on torture, who was to visit Tibet and Xinjiang during his two-week stay. Both are border regions with large ethnic minority populations and some of the country's most high-profile political prisoners, accused of instigating separatism or opposition to Chinese rule. The Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said the latest political education campaign in Tibet had been going on since October. A recent visitor to the area said officials had denied the existence of such campaigns or of political interference. Security has also been tightened at the Ganden monastery in Lhasa since a rare visit in October by the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama, the International Campaign for Tibet said. Beijing anointed Gyaltsen Norbu as Tibet's second-most important religious figure in 1995 but the Dalai La ma chose a different boy, exacerbating tensions between the two sides. Richard Gere couldn't be much further from the stereotype of a Hollywood star. He isn't that interested in glamorous parties, and the most offensive thing he's done in recent years was to annoy neighbours by building a meditation hut on top of his Greenwich Village home. He became interested in Buddhism in his early 20s and says his faith is the most important thing in his life.