By Phuntsok Yangchen
DHARAMSHALA, May 13: An abbot of a Tibetan monastery in Chamdo has been arrested again a day after his release. Khenpo Lodoe Rabsel, the abbot of Karma monastery was released on May 5 after serving two years and six months’ imprisonment. He was arrested again on May 6, 2014, and his current whereabouts remain unknown.
Chinese authorities had prohibited Khenpo Lodoe Rabsel from returning to his monastery to resume his duties there and sent him to his home in Chamdo.
Sources say that his health during his time in prison has been poor and that he was denied the required medical attention by the prison authorities. The reasons for his re-arrest is also not clear.
Khenpo Rabsel was arrested in October 2011 along with Khenpo Namsey Sonam, 46, for refusing to “cooperate” with the Chinese officials conducting patriotic reeducation campaigns at the monastery. “The monks refused to denounce the Dalai Lama and consider Tibet as part of China as required in the patriotic re-education classes,” TCHRD said in its release in 2011.
Following the self-immolation of Tenzin Phuntsog, a former monk of Karma monastery and the reported bombing of an empty municipal office in the region in 2011, monks of the monastery had faced severe restrictions leading to the arrest of around 70 monks.
The Karma monastery, located on the eastern bank of the Dzachu river in Chamdo, was founded by the first Gyalwang Karmapa, the head of Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism in the 12th century. Repression had been intense in Chamdo, particularly since the 2008 pan-Tibet protests. The area witnessed a dramatic tightening of security and imposition of ‘emergency’ measures by the authorities.
