DHARAMSHALA, MAY 29: A first hand account from a diary of a Tibetan monk has revealed the dark secrets of China’s patriotic reeducation centres, where Tibetan nuns are allegedly raped, according to the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.
Sexual abuse is apparently rampant in the re-education centres and is particularly targeted against the nuns, said TCHRD. “Many nuns would lose consciousness during the [military] drills. Sometimes officers would take unconscious nuns inside where I saw them fondle the nuns’ breasts and grope all over their body,” writes the monk whose name has been concealed for his safety.
A personal diary obtained by the Tibetan rights group based here gives a detailed account of the attempts made by Chinese government at Reeducation Centres to neutralize the faith and loyalty for exiled Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama. . “Lessons focussed more on chastising us and denouncing Rinpoche (His Holiness the Dalai Lama),” writes the monk whose name has been concealed for his safety.
The TCHRD said the monk’s account validates anecdotal evidence collected by the centre in recent years on the existence of such “extralegal centres used to educate ‘politically unreliable’ Tibetans.”
The monk spent about four months in a re-education centre in Sog (Ch: Suo) County, Nagchu Prefecture, TAR. All inmates at the re-education centre were monks and nuns except for two or three laypersons. He was among many other monks and nuns forced to return home and abandon studies in monastic institutions located outside TAR in the past several years. The monk was pursuing his education in Tsongon (Ch: Qinghai) Province when he was ordered to return to Sog County or face severe consequences.
“Without breaking any law and exercising legitimate rights, I had gone to pursue education in Tsongon [Qinghai]. But I was forcibly taken back to my hometown on 13 July 2017. I was told that those who did not return would have their family including their parents and siblings arrested. Children from such families will be denied school admission. Families will also be barred from harvesting caterpillar fungus. I had no choice but to return in the face of such repressive directives,” he writes.
On his arrival in Sog County, an officer from the State Security Bureau (SSB) took him to a newly built “transformation through education” training centre with nothing except his clothes, towel, toothpaste and toothbrush.
The monk writes that he soon realized that the re-education center was actually a prison. “After breakfast, we had to attend classes. Lessons focussed more on chastising us and denouncing Rinpoche [His Holiness the Dalai Lama]. Laws and regulations were taught superficially and there was little in legal education that could actually benefit us. Sometimes the officers looked like a bunch of petulant kids. Witnessing a powerful nation [China] engage in secret denunciation campaigns against an elderly monk [His Holiness the Dalai Lama] living in distant land makes one cry and laugh at the same time.”
