Senior Kirti monk sentenced to prison in secret in eastern Tibet
Former head of prayer session of Kirti monastery serving three years sentence in Mianyang Prison
A senior Tibetan buddhist monk was secretly sentenced to three years in prison few months after his detention on 10 June 2021. Lobsang Tashi, 43, former head of prayer session at Kirti monastery is known to be in Mianyang Prison which is known for releasing Tibetan political prisoners in extreme poor health and traumatised state, and where Tibetan writers, monks, and public intellectuals had previously been sent following trumped-up charges by the Chinese courts.
A source confided “Lobsang was summoned suddenly by Ngaba County police personnel from his resident in Kirti Monastery and then arbitrarily detained somewhere out of the county before he was jailed for three years imprisonment following a secret trail. Kirti Monastery and his family knew that Lobsang was summoned by Ngaba County police personnel but they didn’t know that he was arbitrarily detained. Later his brother found out that Lobsang was already sentenced to three years imprisonment and serving in Mianyang prison. Recently, only some family members were allowed to meet Lobsang in the prison.”
According to the same source “The Chinese authorities arrested and jailed Lobsang Tashi for conducting general prayer sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic without following orders of the concerned office in Ngaba. He steadfastly refused to hand over the management of monastery property to the authority from prefecture level as demanded by the authority. Moreover, he was accused of keeping in touch with Tibetan in exile". He further stated that " he was accused for obstructing the hoisting of the Chinese flag in Kirti monastery, not cooperating with the Ngaba prefectural officers several times and making offering [money offering to pray] for the deceased to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Kirti Rinpoche”.
The same source also mentioned "his family were aware about his detention from the begining, but they were not able to share or reached out to anyone else due to the fear of retribution and they might have been warned of serious consequences by the Chinese authority".
Lobasang Tashi (བློ་བཟང་བཀྲ་ཤིས།) hails from village six (རུ་ཆུང་དྲུག་པ།), upper nomad town (ཕྱུགས་ལས་གོང་མ།), Ngaba County (རྔ་བ་རྫོང་།), in eastern Tibet. Lobsang is the second youngest among his seven siblings and་his late father’s name is Sherab. He enrolled at Ngaba Kirti Monastery when was young and completed his duty as a chant master in Kirti Monastery, Kirti Tashi Lhundup Ling Monastery, and Dhongre Kirti Monastery as a monk vocalist.