By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, December 3: The Chinese authorities have sentenced two Tibetan monks to imprisonment for carrying out separate solo protests in Ngaba earlier this year.
According to Kanyag Tsering, a monk of Kirti Monastery here in exile, Gendun Phuntsok, aged 18, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. He was arrested on March 8 this year for carrying out a solo protest. Besides the imprisonment sentence, the other terms and details of the sentencing is still unclear.
The local policemen apprehended him after he marched into the main street of Ngaba town carrying a huge portrait of the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama garlanded with a yellow traditional scarf. He called for ‘the return of the Dalai Lama’ and ‘Equality and freedom for Tibetans’. He hails from Chuglay Gapma of Cha village, Ngaba County. His father’s name is Tagya and mother’s Riggo.
In a separate sentencing, a monk of Kirti Monastery, Lobsang Kalsang, 19, was sentenced to three and half years in prison on November 2. He was arrested on March 17 this year for carrying out a solo protest.
Lobsang carried a portrait of the Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama and threw paper prayer flags into the air as he walked along the main street. Chinese police on patrol immediately subdued him before being taken away. He also called for ‘Freedom in Tibet’ and ‘long life for Dalai Lama’.
Lobsang is one of the three children of Tsering and Dechen, residents of Chuglay Gapma of Cha village, Ngaba County.
