20 May 1996 - Tibet Information Network

Efforts to ban photographs of the exiled Dalai Lama have been stepped up as the campaign shifts to schools in Lhasa, according to reports from the Tibetan capital.

Students at the city's middle, or secondary, schools were reportedly summoned to meetings on Thursday 16th May, where they were told that possession of Dalai Lama photographs is no longer permitted.

The children were also told that they could not wear "sung-du", the red cords commonly worn around the wrist or the neck by Tibetan Buddhists. Literally "protection knots", the cords include a knot tied by a lama in the course of a Buddhist ceremony, and are supposed by believers to confer protection.

The order banning the cords suggests a general attack on displays of religious belief, and goes further than the current campaign against the Dalai Lama, since all lamas or religious teachers similar cords to their followers, and wearing one does not necessarily suggest a link with the Dalai Lama.

One source claimed further that the children had been informed that they were also not permitted to have the pictures in their homes, although this could not be confirmed.

No published orders yet ban provate possession of the photographs, but many Tibetans are waiting to see if the Chinese authorities will push their campaign to its next and presumably final stage by mounting house to house searches for the pictures, and rumours are circulating widely in the city that such searches have already taken place in some areas.

The campaign began in earnest 18 months ago when government employees in official accommodation were told they could not have pictures or any religious objects in their rooms. In January this year certain monasteries and temples were warned that they must remove the photographs, and unpublished statements were made warning Tibetans that the photographs would soon be banned from private houses as well as monasteries.

The first published order appeared in the main newspaper in Tibet on 5th April, but said the ban applied only to monasteries and that it would be introduced "gradually". On 24th April small groups of officials visited public buildings in Lhasa - hotels, restaurants and shops - and enforced the new demand, apparently without open opposition.

Orders banning schoolchildren from having Dalai Lama photographs were issued in middle schools frequently in 1986, when authorities first became concerned that the reforms of 1980 were going too far, but there is no sign that these were ever implemented, and generally the photographs have been tolerated on the grounds that they represent religious and not political loyalty. China is now arguing that the Dalai Lama does not deserve loyalty on either count. "The Dalai Lama is not a man of the religious community", China's Ambassador to Australia said last Tuesday, in an attack on plans to allow the exile monk to visit Australia this autumn.

"This act has made us feel resentful, and deep ill feeling has been surfacing amongst Tibetans here," one Tibetan in Lhasa told TIN, commenting on the ban on the Dalai Lama photographs. "When they make irreverent and aggressive criticism against him, it feels to us Tibetans like being stabbed through our hearts with a sword," he said.

- Ganden Monastery "Deserted" -

The monastery of Ganden, where a violent incident took place on 7th May when monks resisted orders to remove Dalai Lama pictures, is now almost deserted, according to sources in the area, who say that scores of monks have walked out of the monastery.

"Now, all the monks of Ganden have left the monastery, and only the very young and old are still there," said one source, who asked not to be named. The monastery has been closed and a checkpoint set up at Taktse bridge which last week was preventing foreigners from leaving the Lhasa area in that direction, but now allows foreigners to pass provided they do not take the side road towards Ganden.

The Taktse checkpoint, together with another one at Toelung on the west side of the capital, is also reported to be preventing monks from outside Lhasa entering the city.

Reports of the numbers arrested at Ganden vary from 7 to 70, but there are now said to be only a handful of elderly monks and young boys left in the vast complex of monastery buildings. Even allowing for a number who may have been hospitalised, this suggests that a large number of the 500 Ganden monks may have returned to their villages. A significant number are known to be in hiding or have already set out to cross the Himalayan passes which lead to Nepal, from where they can seek refuge in India.

The Ganden monks are reported to have told the work team that was sent to implement the photograph ban on 7th May that they would leave en masse if the ban was imposed, and appear to have carried out their threat.

A similar statement is reported to have been made by monks at Sera monastery on 12th May when a group of Communist Party officials arrived there in a work team with similar instructions. A number of monks at Sera closed the gates of the monastery in protest at the order, a move which was copied by young monks in Drepung monastery and at the temples of Ramoche and Jokhang later last week. The closure of the two Lhasa monasteries and the two temples was not carried out by the authorities, as reported earlier, but was a gesture of protest by monks against the new ban.

The Jokhang, Tibet's main temple, was re-opened after one day, and Sera re-opened on Saturday 18th May, in order to allow celebrations of a Buddhist festival, the first day of the Saga-dawa, to take place. Drepung and Ramoche have also re-opened, according to an unconfirmed report, and the order to remove the Dalai Lama photographs is believed to have been carried out in the public areas of the institutions.

The shooting by police at Ganden on 7th May, which followed stone-throwing by monks, is now reported to have led to the deaths of two monks, although this figure is unconfirmed. Another monk received a bullet at the base of the spine, and is in a serious condition, and two others have bullet wounds in the leg. Another monk, a teacher at the monastery, was badly beaten on the base of the skull and has sustained neurological damage, and experiencing speech difficulties and fits, according to a source who had visited the patient, who described the teacher's condition as life-threatening. "There are at least 5 or 6 other monks who got broken legs and arms," the source claimed.

A further sign of increasing tension came from the main prison in Lhasa, where relatives of inmates were told on 14th May that they were not allowed their monthly visits to Drapchi jail, which holds up to 250 political prisoners.

"The city is crawling with soldiers, and there are road-blocks on the road leading into Lhasa where they are checking who is coming in", said one western tourist contacted by phone in Lhasa yesterday. He added that his group had had difficulties returning from the centre of the city to their hotel on the outskirts of town because of police checks.

Police carried out searches of two tourist hotels and a restaurants at midnight on 7th May, apparently in an attempt to identify a Westerner who by chance witnessed and photographed the incident at Ganden. The foreigner, who has asked not to be named, was the only tourist at Ganden at the time, and was told by monks that they had been ordered to remove all Dalai Lama pictures by that day. He later took pictures of monks throwing stones at officials during a violent confrontation and returned undetected to Lhasa before the shooting began. Police have so far failed to identify him, but have carried out body-searches of a number of westerners who match his description. [end]