Teenage monk and blogger detained at undisclosed location after staging solo protest

Chinese authorities continue to hold the 18 yr-old monk at an undisclosed location weeks after his arbitrary arrest from Ngaba county town in Ngaba (Ch: Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

Tenzin Gelek, a monk from the local Kirti Monastery, was arrested on 6 September by local security forces after he carried out a lone protest calling for “Freedom in Tibet”. His current whereabouts and condition remain unknown.

Prior to the protest, he had posted two blogposts on his WeChat account that were critical of Chinese rule in Tibet. Both posts titled, ‘Do You Think I Could Endure to Live?’ and ‘To the Communist Party of China’, condemn the insidious erosion of Tibetan identity under Chinese rule and denounces the unequal relationship between China and Tibet. He has authored many other blogposts using the pseudonym ‘Sarin’.

Gelek is the son of Mr Ma-nyo and Mrs Kondol of nomadic camp no. 2 in Meruma Town, Ngaba County.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) is deeply concerned about the fate and whereabouts of Tenzin Gelek and calls for his immediate and unconditional release. Chinese authorities must also disclose the information about Gelek’s whereabouts and condition to his family members without delay. TCHRD calls on Chinese authorities to refrain from subjecting Gelek to torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and allow him to exercise his human rights without fear of government reprisals.

                                                       

Do you think I could endure to live?

                                        Sarin

 

Hello, World,

I possess a black flame of anguish that can neither be scratched off nor disappeared

 

Hello, Nature

I also possess a Lhasa that can never be finished writing and a related verse dripping with blood

 

Hello, Bhota,

What I still possess are the 34 Tibetan alphabets that you have long bestowed upon me,

And the courage to use them again and again

 

Hello, Fatherland,

I love you and feel sorry for you with all my heart,

More than ever before I wish to wear like clothes and drink like rivers the ignorance with which I cannot fathom your past and your future

 

Hello, World, Nature, Bhota and Fatherland

Really can I endure it?

 

Listen with your ears stretched out

Look with your eyeballs turned out

 

The ones coming to the front

Gobble suffering and guzzle blood

 

The ones coming to the front violently stole our mother’s life force

Look, listen, didn’t you see it?

 

The ones coming to the front hold our name and letters ‘Tibet’ and willfully distort its spelling

 

Oh, I get it. Now I get it!

The ones coming to the front are the butchers that revel in darkness and cause suffering

 

I really get it now!

The ones coming to the front are actually murderers that misspell the name of my bones,

They are the real murderers

 

Today I am happy and sad, sad and happy,

In the space between happiness and sadness, I have finally found the murderer!

 

6.09.2018

 

To the Communist Party of China

 

I want to declare an end

To this repulsive alliance between us

By sounding a gong

 

Under this deceitful alliance

My ancestors’ reins and bridle got snapped

 

Under this deceitful alliance

The sun got snuffed out of glimmering Lhasa

 

Under this deceitful alliance

The freedom of a giant snow mountain was toppled

 

Under this deceitful alliance

I am a small bird trapped in a bamboo tree

I am the story of the shackled horse

I am the forlorn tombstone in front of a grave

I walk a trail strewn with thorns

Worrying incessantly about myself

 

This alliance is deceptive, this alliance is oppressive

Who would survive such an alliance?

 

I am going to sever the knot of this alliance from its roots

 

Isn’t the alliance between us motivated solely by occupation?