Kunsang Tenzin | Radio Free Asia
[caption id="attachment_3540" align="alignleft" width="300"] Labrang monastery in Sangchu county, Gansu (courtesy of an RFA listener)[/caption]
Police in northwestern China’s Gansu province have taken four monks into custody at a large and well-known Tibetan monastery, posing in one case as electricians to make the arrest and refusing so far to tell family members where the detained men are being held.
All four of those taken into custody were residents of Labrang Tashikyil monastery in Gansu’s Sangchu (in Chinese, Xiahe) county in the Kanlho (Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, a site of frequent protests against Beijing’s rule in Tibetan areas, sources said.
Three of the detained monks—Chunggey Jinpa, Kalsang, and Jamyang—were seized by police at around 7:00 p.m. on June 5 while walking in a market near the monastery, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service on Tuesday.
“Despite a Chinese law requiring authorities to inform detainees’ relatives of where they are being held within 24 hours, nothing has been heard so far,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Their current whereabouts remain unknown,” he said.
The three come originally from the Bora district of Sangchu county, with Kalsang and Jinpa performers of ritual dance at Labrang and Chunggey Jinpa enrolled in formal Tibetan Buddhist studies at the monastery, the source said.