Posts tagged pilgrims

Returning pilgrims

By Martin Saxer | April 11, 2012

Last week, Radio Free Asia reported that a large number of the detained pilgrims who had attended the Kalachakra ceremony in Bodh Gaya (India) in January were finally released after two months. Around 200, however, were still in custody. Edward Wong’s piece for the New York Times last Sunday sums up the story quite well.

I never read anything official from the Chinese government on the affair. But Wong found a commentary by Xiao Jie (China Tibetology Research Center in Bejing) which gives us some indication of how the Party sees the event. This year’s Kalachakra

… was not a political gathering, it was a political show staged by the Dalai Lama and his clique in the name of Tibetan Buddhism.

He added: “The assembly was filled with sermons instigating hatred, terror and extremism, and the self-proclaimed ‘government-in-exile of Tibet’ irresponsibly declared that it admired the spirit of the Tibetan people who committed suicide by self-immolation.”

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More on Detained Pilgrims

By Martin Saxer | February 21, 2012

Tibetan pilgrims returning from the Kalachakra initiation in India at the beginning of January have faced various difficulties (see previous posts here and here). Now, it seems that many of them are still in detention and subjected to political reeducation. Apparently, many of the pilgrims are government officials. Tendar Tsering reports for Phayul:

“The Chinese government has warned Tibetan officials in Chinese occupied Tibet of serious actions and harsh punishments if they failed to return home before February 15,” Kalsang Gyaltsen, a Member of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile said.

According to Human Rights Watch this may be the first time since the 1970 that such a large number of lay people are being detained.
Between 7,000 and 8,000 pilgrims had received the permission to leave the country for Nepal and the authorities must clearly have known where they were heading for. Most seem to have had passports and valid Nepalese visas.

A number of them also traveled directly to India using visas issued by India, indicating that on this occasion the Chinese authorities had not placed restrictions on travel to India in Tibetans’ passports, as in the past. There is no known regulation banning Tibetans from attending the teachings, and the returnees undergoing re-education have not been accused of any crime, such as carrying illicit documents or crossing the Chinese border without permission.
There are no reports so far that any of the estimated 700 ethnic Chinese from China who attended the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Bihar have been detained on their return to China, suggesting that the detainees are being selected because of their ethnicity.

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Tibetan pilgrims, soul-searching in Nepal

By Martin Saxer | January 31, 2012

More reports come in about the difficulties Tibetan pilgrims face on their way back to Tibet from the Kalachakra ritual that took place in Bodhgaya (India) earlier this month. An estimated 8,000 pilgrims from Tibet attended the initiation given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. They are subjected to harrassment at Chinese airports as well as along the Friendship Highway. The Tibetan Review reports:

There were as many as twelve heavily secured Chinese checkpoints the Tibetans had to pass through between the border Tibetan town of Dram (Chinese: Zhangmu, Nepalese: Khasa) and Tibet’s capital Lhasa. Police and the paramilitary People’s Armed Police Force personnel were reported to search all the returning Tibetan pilgrims. [...] The security personnel were reported to confiscate all medicinal and religious items possessed by the returning Tibetans, subjecting them to verbal abuses and threats of physical violence in case any of them tried to complain about such unwarranted and illegal search and seizure.

Furthermore, Zeenews reports that another group of 65 returning Tibetans were arrested in Nepal:

The Buddhist monks and nuns, who were travelling in a bus, were detained at Nagdhunga on the outskirts of the capital as they failed to produce valid identification and travel documents, police said.

Meanwhile, a good amount soul-searching is going on in Nepal about the implications of Wen’s short visit. Some the deals Nepal had hoped to secure remained, well, promises and the way in which the visit took place caused some irritation. N. P. Upadhyaya for Telegraph Nepal:

Premier Wen’s meet with the Nepali leaders in “multitude” must have been well understood by Nepal’s august leaders. He made all Nepali leaders to queue themselves and granted “audience” in series.

 

 

 

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