(TibetanReview.net, Nov08’22) – In addition to monastic discipline master Sonam Gyatso, China has jailed a second monk, named Rachung Gendun, of Kirti monastery in Sichuan province for having send religious offering money abroad, reported the Tibetan Service of rfa.org Nov 7. Also, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, named as Jigme Gyatso, of Tso-ngon Buddhist University in Qinghai’s capital Xining continues to remain disappeared more than a year after he was taken away by Chinese police, said the Central Tibetan Administration on its Tibet.net website Nov 8.
Sonam Gyatso and Rachung Gendun were arrested after they were found to have sent religious offering money to Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and the head of their Kirti Monastery, both currently living in Dharamshala, India, after they left their Chinese occupied homeland.
Oslo-based Tibetan-language broadcast service vot.org earlier said Nov 4 that Sonam Gyatso, arrested on Apr 3, 2021, was jailed for two years, but did not mention the case of Rachung Gendun, arrested on Apr 1, 2021 from his monastery, located in Sichuan’s Ngaba (or Ngawa, Chinese: Aba) County and Prefecture.
Rachung Gendun was strongly opposed to the Chinese government’s “patriotic education” campaign, which had earlier led to his detention for several months, said the rfa.org report. The Chinese were stated to have confiscated photos of the Dalai Lama and several other items from his living monastic quarter at that time.
Both the monks are currently stated to be held at Mianyang prison near Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.
Meanwhile, a Tibetan monk named Jigme Gyatso from the Tso-ngon Buddhist University in Qinghai’s capital Xining has remained disappeared ever since he was taken away by Chinese police more than a year ago.
He was arrested in May 2021 on charges linked to distributing poetry books to fellow-monks at the Tso-ngon Buddhist University during a graduation ceremony.
Better known by his penname ‘Nublung’, 36-year-old Jigme Gyatso, is a native of Dosum (Duosong) village in Yulgan (Henan) and Thongko Dewa township of Malho Prefecture (Huangnan), Qinghai. He once won a poetry competition organised by Lhokha City in the southeastern Tibet Autonomous Region. Poets from all over the three regions of Tibet participated in that competition, said the Tibet.net report.