By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, Dec. 19: A Tibetan monk named Tenzin Dargye has reportedly been detained in Sershul County in Sept last year, a reliable source told RFA Tibetan on Tuesday. Dargye went missing more than a year ago and has been held incommunicado, with no information of his whereabouts or possible date of trial, as per the report.
The monk in his 30s lived in Barong monastery in Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture’s Sershul County. Dargye had been charged for keeping pictures of the Dalai Lama and other sensitive material on his phone, the close contact in exile said. “It has now been more than a year since his arrest, but his family still has no information about where he is being held or whether he has already been tried or not,” he added. Several monks may also have been arrested with Dargye.
Another monk from Kirti monastery in Ngaba County, Lobsang Trinley was recently sentenced to five-year of prison for publishing teachings and writings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Sept this year. The 20-year-old’s trial was held in secret without the presence of family members and lawyers at the Ngaba County People’s Court. A source told Free Tibet that his family was left uninformed until two months after the arrest. He has been taken to Mianyang prison near Chegdu city in the so-called Sichuan province.
The reports reveal continuous crackdown on Tibetans who have shown their recognition and respect of the Dalai Lama living in exile, as a recent TCHRD report suggested that over 1,800 Tibetan political prisoners are still serving sentences in Chinese prisons. One of the major concerns in the exile community remains sourcing of information from inside Tibet, as many many cases of detention go unreported due to extreme clampdown on communication lines between Tibetans in exile and those inside Tibet.
