Dharamshala, India — New photo and video materials have been smuggled out of eastern Tibet recently, shedding more light on the repressive policies and tactics used by the Chinese government over the past few years to crush the Yachen Gar Buddhist center and violently crack down on thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns, leading to the forced removal of over 7,000 students.
Nearly half of the sprawling complex of the Yachen Gar Buddhist center, leaving a vast patch of grass where thousands of Buddhist nuns and monks once lived and studied. Almost half of the entire complex has been razed since the demolition of the nuns' dwellings began on July 19, 2019, and moved ahead quickly, with at least 100 structures now torn down, follows the forced removal beginning in May of over 7,000 residents.
A very short video clip taken on August 11, 2019, shows that Chinese authorities moved quickly with the forceful demolition, leaving only barren ground where the dwellings were leveled. The videotape smuggled out across the Himalayas recently has revealed how the officials of the authoritarian regime in Bejing, demolished one of Tibet's most important centres of Buddhist learning last year, reducing most of the building to rubble.
In the recent pictures received from Tibet recently, also shows that half of the Buddhists nuns’ dwellings have been demolished and in an effort to cover-up the demolition the Chinese authorities have covered the ground with green plastic. Another photo shows a clear flat site where the 3000 nuns’ dwellings once stood.
'The forceful confinement of the evicted residents including the beatings of the evicted nuns who are currently confined in Jomda County of eastern Tibet are emanating from Tibet with reports emerging of the use of police torture against protestors. The Buddhist nuns are being subjected to the so-called "patriotic re-education campaign" and are not even allowed to wear their monastic robes, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Situated in a remote Palyul County in the traditional Province of Kham, eastern Tibet, some 4,000 meters above sea level, the Yarchen Gar was until recent years home to an estimated 10,000 nuns, monks, and lay practitioners devoted to scriptural study and meditation. The monastery and the educational institute was established in 1985 by the abbot, Achuk Rinpoche who was a Dzogchen practitioner and one of the senior Nyingma masters in Tibet.
The communist-totalitarian state of China began their invasion of Tibet in 1949, reaching complete occupation of the country in 1959. Since that time, more than 1.2 million people, 20% of the nation's population of six million, have died as a direct result of China's invasion and occupation. In addition, over 99% of Tibet's six thousand religious monasteries, temples, and shrines, have been looted or decimated resulting in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sacred Buddhist scriptures.
Until 1949, Tibet was an independent Buddhist nation in the Himalayas which had little contact with the rest of the world. It existed as a rich cultural storehouse of the Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings of Buddhism. Religion was a unifying theme among the Tibetans -- as was their own language, literature, art, and world view developed by living at high altitudes, under harsh conditions, in a balance with their environment.