By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, Oct. 25: Chinese authorities has reportedly detained a Tibetan monk Lobsang Choephel from Kirti monastery in Ngaba County earlier this month on unknown charges. According to Kanyag Tsering, a monk from the Dharamshala based Kirti-Jhepa monastery, his whereabouts and condition is currently unknown.
The 34-year-old monk was previously detained twice, once in Lhasa in 2008 during the uprising and again in Ngaba County in 2011, where he was detained for over four months. Lobsang Choephel worked as a staff of the monastery’s computer section and further served as the official photographer of this institution. His photographs on natural sceneries have also won several contests, and his work online is published under the pseudonym Rewai Dawoe. Lobsang is from Ngasib Kanyag Ruwatsang, and is among four children of late Rikho and mother Tsering Kyi.
The source also hinted at possible arrest of other monks from Kirti monastery in the so-called Sichuan province, but the claims are yet to be verified in detail including the names of the detainees. Ngaba County in Tibet’s traditional province of Amdo is one of the most restive regions in occupied Tibet. In July, several senior monks from Trotsik monastery were also detained on unknown charges.
Similarly, a 19-year old Tibetan boy named Sherab Dorjee was arrested and taken into custody in August by Chinese police in Trotsik Township on allegations of rebelling against the Chinese government, whereas he had simply petitioned against the county’s orders on schools to instruct only in Chinese.
