www.TibetanReview.net, June 11’08
Unable to endure anymore the constant patriotic education and the accompanying severe restrictions and repression, including the sacrilege, beatings and arrests, monks at monasteries in Tibet have been leaving their religious schools and centres in large numbers. At the Tak-stang Lhamo Kirti Monastery in Dzoge (Chinese: Ruo’ergai) County of Ngaba Prefecture, for example, monks stopped participating in the patriotic education on Jun 1 and by the morning of Jun 3 all except a few past their seventies had left the monastery, reported Tibet.net Jun 7.
It was earlier reported that monks of Kirti monastery had been refusing to take part in prayer services after the authorities barred about 190 alleged opponents of the patriotic education being held at the monastery by a work team from taking part in them. Tibet.net reported May 31 that the monks had been contending that they were together as one through moments of both happiness and sorrow. The report said the monks were still being harshly criticized through the local official newspaper and by other means for having led a demonstration in the county in Mar 2008.