17. Oct 2006
Nine Tibetans detained for links to leaflets, posters
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) reports that People's Republic of China’s (PRC) public security officials detained nine Tibetans in Kardze (Chin: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan province, between March and August 2006. According to a series of reports published between June and September by Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Phayul.com, the detentions followed incidents of distributing or displaying pro-independence leaflets and posters and, in at least one case, possessing printed matter that included photographs of the Dalai Lama. Three detainees are Buddhist nuns, one is a former nun, and one is a 16-year-old female student. Three of the four males are Buddhist monks. Eight of the nine detained Tibetans live in Ganzi county which accounts for more Tibetan political prisoners than anywhere outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Accounting for nine out of ten known politically motivated detentions of Tibetans in 2006 so far, these detentions in Kardze confirm a shift of Tibetan political activism and imprisonment from central Tibet to Sichuan province. The pattern, according to CECC, became apparent in 2002 but was interrupted in 2005 where no known case occurred in Sichuan.