CHINA-INTERNAL: PROTESTS IN TIBET
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News has just emerged of the detention of Tashi Dhondup, a young Tibetan man, who walked along a road in Dzoege (Chinese: Ruo’ergai) county town on December 19, 2015, wearing traditional Tibetan dress and bearing a photograph of the Dalai Lama, with a Buddhist flag on his back. Footage circulating on social media shows him running and walking along the street bearing the large picture of the exiled religious leader. According to Tibetan sources, he was detained by armed police shortly after the footage was shot and his current whereabouts are unknown. Tashi Dhondhup was born in Thangkor Township, Dzoege County, Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Prefecture in Sichuan, the Tibetan area of Amdo. (Comment: Tashi Dhondup is the 14th lone protester in Ngaba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture documented by Tibetan sources since July 2015. The trend of solo protests are a new trend in the Ngaba area of Amdo, in Sichuan province, the same area where the wave of self-immolations began in 2009 when Kirti monk Tapey set himself on fire. There have also been a number of solo protests in Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi), also in Sichuan province, where a number of self-immolations have occurred. It is notable that in this different pattern of protests, the young men and women who demonstrated have not harmed themselves. Most of the solo protesters have called for freedom for Tibet and for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet, with many holding up images of the exiled Tibetan religious leader or clasping their hands together in prayer. Seven Kirti monks who carried out lone protests this year are of the same generation as many of those who self-immolated, and may have known some of the self-immolators; two have family connections to Tibetans who are already in prison. The current wave of solo protests in Ngaba appears to have begun in 2014.
The trend of solo protests have led to an intensified security crackdown in the area and, in Ngaba county town, internet service was cut from September 10 for all except government offices.)
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