CHINA-TIBET: DEMOLITION OF HOUSES AT YACHEN GAR, KARDZE, PALYUL (BAIYU) COUNTY

Radio Free Asia reported on August 15, 2017, that authorities in Yachen Gar, located in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) prefecture’s Palyul (Baiyu) county in China’s Sichuan province, began demolishing 2,000 residences of Tibetan clergy at the Yachen Gar Buddhist Center from August 8. It said they will expel an equal number of monks and nuns from the complex by the end of the year. In April this year the authorities reportedly demolished at least 200 tents set up by Tibetan pilgrims visiting Yachen Gar. Yachen Gar, located in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) prefecture’s Palyul (Baiyu) county and founded in 1985, until recently housed an estimated 10,000 monks, nuns, and lay practitioners devoted to scriptural study and meditation. The International Campaign for Tibet said in a report on March 13, 2017, that restrictions on Yachen Gar and the better-known Larung Gar complex in Sichuan’s Serthar (Seda) county are part of “an unfolding political strategy” aimed at controlling the influence and growth of these important centers for Tibetan Buddhist study and practice. It quoted a senior abbot at Larung Gar as saying that at the end of June the Chinese authorities had destroyed 4,725 monastic dwellings over the course of a year at the complex, with a total of more than 7,000 demolished since efforts to reduce the number of monks and nuns living at the sprawling center began in 2001.

(Comment:  Yachen Gar was established in 1985. More than 4,828 monks and nuns are reported to have been expelled since 2016.) 






Subscribe to Newswire | Site Map | Email Us
Centre for China Analysis and Strategy, A-50, Second Floor, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi-110057
Tel: 011 41017353
Email: office@ccasindia.org