Dharamshala, India — A famous Tibetan writer called Go Sherab Gyatso was detained by the Chinese authority last year on unknown charges. Other information regarding his arrest is still unknown. He is a well-known Tibetan writer and teacher. This is his fourth arrest or detention by Chinese police since 1998.
According to a reliable source of TPI, Go Sherab Gyatso was detained in Chengdu city, Sichuan Province by the Chinese officers of Lhasa Intelligence on October 26, 2020. The Chinese authority warned his family members not to tell anyone about his arrest and other information. Therefore, further details including reasons for his arrest, detention, and his current whereabouts are still unknown to the world.
Go Sherab Gyatso (Gosher) hails from Ngaba county, Amdo region of Tibet, and was a monk of Kirti monastery. Deemed a skillful writer and a great teacher, he has on several occasions been invited to address students at the Northwest University for Nationalities and monasteries on issues related to Tibetan culture and the education of Tibetans, particularly the education system of monasteries. Gosher is also a successful researcher and has traveled extensively around China, India, and Nepal in the past.
In 2009, he published his first book titled "Time to Wake up", a book that quickly became hugely popular all over Tibet and the writer's work has been well received by both Tibetans inside and outside Tibet. He has published around eight books including "Common sense and path" and "Find your path by yourself.
In 1998, Gosher was arrested for the first time, when around 40 monasteries - including Kirti monastery - were subjected to Chinese authorities' "re-education" programs. In a response to this, Gosher made and put up posters describing the exact laws of China that the Chinese authorities were themselves seen breaking, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, etc. His actions then caused him 4 years of imprisonment, when he was arrested for being the one responsible for the posters.
After serving his time and being released, Gosher then went to study Buddhism in Lhasa, but, when the unrest of 2008 happened, he was found to be leading a group of Kirti monks protesting in the streets of Lhasa. He was promptly arrested again and had to endure more than a year of imprisonment before being released.
Over the past 70 decades, there has been ongoing political repression, social discrimination, economic marginalization, environmental destruction, and cultural assimilation, particularly due to Chinese migration to Tibet which is fueling intense resentment among the people of occupied Tibet.
The communist-totalitarian state of China began its invasion of Tibet in 1949, reaching complete occupation of the country in 1959. Since that time, more than 1.2 million people, 20% of the nation's population of six million, have died as a direct result of China's invasion and occupation. In addition, over 99% of Tibet's six thousand religious monasteries, temples, and shrines, have been looted or decimated resulting in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sacred Buddhist scriptures.
Until 1949, Tibet was an independent nation in the Himalayas which had little contact with the rest of the world. It existed as a rich cultural storehouse — a unifying theme among the Tibetans — as was their own language, literature, art, and world view developed by living at high altitudes, under harsh conditions, in a balance with their environment.
