China expelling monks and nuns from famed Tibetan Buddhist study centre under demolition

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Demolished homes are shown on a hillside at Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in Serta. (Photo courtesy: RFA)
Demolished homes are shown on a hillside at Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in Serta. (Photo courtesy: RFA)

(TibetanReview.net, Aug13, 2016) – As official demolition of student residences at the famed Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in Serta (Chinese: Seda) County of Sichuan Province continues, China is forcing its monks and nuns who had originally come from the cities and prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region of Lhasa (Lasa), Ngari (Ali), Nagchu (Naqu), and Chamdo (Changdu) to return home, reported the Tibetan Service of Radio Free Asia (Washington) Aug 11.

“The family members of monks and nuns from these areas in the TAR have been ordered to come to Larung Gar to take their relatives home,” the report quoted a local source as saying, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Those residents had already been under constant restrictions from the authorities. They had been summoned and “harassed with questions and ‘political education’ classes”. The report said the sessions had gone on for weeks, and even months in some cases.

Monks and nuns who had come from Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu provinces were yet to be expelled, although this remains only a question of time since the Chinese government’s plan is to reduce their numbers at the academy to a maximum of 5,000 from the current estimated more than 10,000.

In the case of the monks and nuns from Nagchu’s Driru (Biru) County, who were among the first to be forced out, their families were warned with severe consequences in case they failed to comply with the expulsion order, including by being banned from taking part in the cordyceps hunting summer season, a major source of income for the local people.

1 COMMENT

  1. ISN’T IT OBVIOUS THAT CHINA IS NOT GOING TO STOP DESTRUCTION OF TIBETAN MONASTERIES? NO OUTSIDE PRESSURE IS GOING TO HAVE ANY EFFECT. WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP WISHING AND HOPING? NUNS AND MONKS MUST BE BROUGHT TO SAFETY – OUTSIDE OF TIBET AND CHINA. SOON.

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