Dharamshala: Three monks from a Monastery in Dhingri, south western Tibet have been sentenced by the Chinese authorities to severer time in prison, the Tibet Post International has learned.
Under the Shigatse the 3 monks were officially given their sentence, however, they were arrested on May 19th, 2008 during a forced patriotic re-education on the monks in Shelkar Choede Monastery by Chinese work team officials. During this re-education the monks were forced to denounce the Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader, their failure to do so resulted in the arrest. Since the incident the local Chinese authorities have stopped admission of new monks to the monastery.
Tenzin Gephel and Ngawang, were sentenced to 12 years in prison and another monk from the same monastery was sentenced to five years. However, the dates of trial and verdict announcement are still not known.
Since March 2008, over 224 Tibetans have been killed, 1,294 injured and 290 sentenced, more than 5,600 were arrested or detained and over 1,000 disappeared after the Chinese armed military deadly cracked down in all parts of Tibet. Moreover, many major Tibetan websites have been forced to close down and all of the web-blogs in Tibetan are censored and shut-down.
