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Qinghai: lama close to the government arrested
Lama Geshe Tsultrim Gyatso was travelling to a school where he had been invited to deliver a lecture. He is the vice president of his monastery’s Democratic Management Committee and vice chairman of a charitable foundation close to the government. He disappeared on 14 October.
Lhasa (AsiaNews) – Security police in Qinghai, which includes the Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture of Tsolo, arrested Lama Geshe Tsultrim Gyatso. The monk, who is from the Dhitsa Monastery in Gonghuo County, was on his way to Tongchey National School on invitation of its administrators to speak to the students. Police did not inform the family of his arrest on 14 October.
Geshe Gyatso, 40, comes from Gonghuo County, Changshey Township. He studied and earned his ‘Geshe’ degree from Dhitsa monastery, after engaging temple abbots in a dialectical conversation on the foundations of Buddhism and three years of meditation.
Gyatso is well known in the area. He is the vice president of the monastery’s Democratic Management Committee (DMC). He has also been invited on a number of occasions to speak at various Communist schools and institutions on preserving the Tibetan language and culture.
Although, he has always called for the preservation of Tibetan traditions and language in his lectures, he is seen by some as too close to the government.
Geshe Gyatso is also the vice chairman of ‘Tsong-kha Kiri Charitable Foundation’, which provides care and support to the elderly and pays school fees to indigent children whose family cannot afford them.
The foundation is funded by both government and private sources.