Six Kirti monks reported arrested

(TibetanReview.net, May02, 2011)  Six monks have been arrested from Kirti Monastery in Ngaba County of Sichuan Province on or some days before Apr 28, said exile Tibetan online media reports and others on Apr 30, citing a monk named Kanyag Tsering of Kirti Monastery at Dharamsala with contacts in Tibet. They said Lobsang Kunchok, 28, and four others were arrested on Apr 28 while another monk, named as Tsering Damdul, was held several days before that for his alleged role in bringing to the monastery on Mar 16 the body of monk Phuntsog who had been severely beaten by Chinese police after he staged a protest and then set himself on fire.

The monastery has been under a severe spell of patriotic re-education since at least Apr 12. No further details were available about the arrested monks, except that their whereabouts remained unknown.

Also unknown was the whereabouts of the more than 300 monks of Kirti who were trucked away by the Chinese paramilitary People’s Armed Police in the night of Apr 21.

A number of relatives and family members of the detained monks from Khangsarma village in Chigdril (Chinese: Jiuzhi) County of Qinghai Province tried to travel to Ngaba county demand their release; however, they were all stopped, held and delivered into the custody of their county police after reaching Gyatoe subdistrict, located about 5 km away from Ngaba county government offices. Radio Free Asia online Apr 30 said the Tibetans, numbering 70-80, travelled in a convoy of about 40 cars.