Dharamshala: - Chinese security officers have arrested four known monks from Dhowa Shartsa Monastery in Sog County in eastern Tibet for their alleged involvement in the leaflet campaign for Tibet's independence.
"Soon after their arrest on 2 February, 2014, all four of them were taken to Sog County and have since disappeared," Ngawang Tharpa, from Sog County, currently living in Dharamshala, told The Tibet Post International (TPI).
"The four were allegedly charged over distributing around 40 leaflets calling "Tibet is an independent country" in public places in the township, for allegedly throwing stones at windows of government buildings, and removing an official name plate from their monastery," he further told TPI.
The four detained monks were identified as Tsultrim Palzang, 20, Lobsang Yeshe, 15, Kalsang Jampa, 22, and Kalsang Dorjee, 23, all the four monks were students of Dhowa Shartsa Monastery in Sog County, Nagchu Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
In 2012, five Tibetan monks from Sog Tsanden Monastery were arrested by the local Public Security Bureau officers in Sog County, Nagchu Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) after leaflets calling for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet and the restoration of freedom in Tibet were found scattered near the monastery.
For the past few years, unrest has increased in many areas in Sog County and and surrounding areas due to the repressive nature of Chinese policies particularly the Chinese Communists' many political campaigns which have made Tibetans vulnerable to mass surveillance and propaganda campaigns.
Dhowa Shartsa Monastery (a monastery of the Gelugpa tradition) was founded by Shung Shung Choewang Dakpa in the fourteenth century, by Chinese destroyed in 1959.
