CHINA-TIBET: SICHUAN AUTHORITIES CRACK-DOWN ON YACHEN GAR TIBETAN BUDDHIST CENTRE

Radio Free Asia (RFA - 27 July) quoting unnamed Tibetan sources reported that authorities in western China’s Sichuan province have begun a campaign of large-scale demolition at the Yachen Gar Tibetan Buddhist center, with Chinese work crews tearing down over a hundred dwellings of nuns evicted from the complex in recent weeks. It said demolition of the nuns’ dwellings began on July 19 and moved ahead quickly, with at least 100 structures now torn down. RFA's sources said  the destruction follows the forced removal beginning in May of over 7,000 residents of the sprawling center in  Palyul (in Chinese, Baidu) county, which once housed around 10,000 monks and nuns devoted to scriptural study and meditation. “The heavy machinery rolled out at Yachen Gar includes excavators, bulldozers, and dump trucks. For now, it is only the nuns’ dwellings that are being targeted, but soon after this it will be the houses of the monks.” On July 20, dump trucks hauled the wreckage of the structures already destroyed to a vacant area called Nyithang Yultso and piled it there to be burned. “After each day’s work, the men and machines are now moved to rest for the night in a fenced enclosure on the outskirts of Yachen Gar close to a military camp.” The source told RFA that senior monks and administrators at Yachen Gar have written over 40 petitions so far to Chinese authorities “at all levels,” appealing for a halt to the removals and destruction, but their requests have been rejected. “When they go to the relevant Chinese offices and departments to appeal, the Chinese officials reprimand them by pointing their fingers in their faces, and have even slapped them.” “Those in charge at Yachen Gar have endured all of this silently in the hope that their petitions will be heard, but in vain.” The sources claimed that many of those expelled from Yachen Gar are now being held in detention and subjected to political re-education and beatings.

(Comment: During 2017 and 2018, at least 4,820 Tibetan and Han Chinese monks and nuns were removed from Larung Gar, with over 7,000 dwellings and other structures torn down beginning in 2001).






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