China jails senior Tibetan monk for 12 years

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(TibetanReview.net, Jul15, 2015) – China has jailed in May this year a senior Tibetan Buddhist monk for 12 years for organizing a peaceful resistance against its mining activities on a sacred mountain in Druri (Chinese: Biru) County of Nagchu (Naqu) Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, said Dharamshala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy Jul 13. Information about his sentencing was said to have been found out by his family rather on information provided by the Chinese authorities.

The centre said the sentencing of Venerable Tenzin Lhundup of Gom Gongsar Monastery in the county’s Lenchu (Liangqu) Township came a year after he was detained and had remained disappeared. He was detained, it added, while addressing a public gathering on the current state of Tibetan language and ethnicity (Tibetan: mi rigs dang skad yig ki gnas bab skor) in the township’s Shagchu (Xiaqu) Village on a request by the local Tibetans.

At that time, the Chinese had told the gathering that the senior monk had engaged in ‘anti-government activities’ for many years and that he was one of the protesters against mining activities at Ngalha Dzamba.

Tenzin Lhundrup was said to give Buddhist teachings to the local Tibetans, help arbitrate disputes, and advocate vegetarianism on Wednesdays, marked by Tibetans as sacred, or Lhakar, for being the day on which Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was born. His detention also occurred on a Wednesday.

He was said to have been outspoken in his opposition to the Chinese mining of the sacred local Naglha Dzamba Mountain, urging the local Tibetans to protect the site from the miners.

His family was said to have found out about his detention and sentencing from Lhasa.

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