Dharamshala — Chinese police detained three Tibetans, including a monk from Labrang Tashi Kyil Monastery, in Sangchu County, northeastern Tibet, earlier this year. Due to the severe restrictions China imposes on the free flow of information from Tibet, no detailed information is available about them, but according to some sources, they were detained on suspicion of maintaining contact with Tibetans in exile.
According to reliable sources to TPI, on March 30, 2026, Jamyang Tashi, a monk from Labrang Tashi Kyil Monastery, along with two other Tibetans, was detained by the Chinese police in Sangchu County, northeastern Tibet, in early February, 2026. In the absence of detailed information, we have been working to confirm the facts and learn more about them; unfortunately, due to China’s severe restrictions on the free flow of information from Tibet, no detailed information obtained.
According to the source, the Tibetan monk Jamyang Tashi and two other Tibetans might be detained on suspicion of maintaining contact with Tibetans in exile. Another souce stated that since 2026, Chinese authorities, police and armed forces are tightening restrictions on Tibetans’ freedom and monitoring their social media accounts—particularly those have their family members, relatives, or friends abroad.
Chinese authorities and police often detain, arrest, torture, and imprison Tibetans who maintain contact with family members, relatives, or friends abroad and who have made donations to Tibetan monasteries in exile or to their spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. "Chinese police may have accused Jamyang Tashi and two other Tibetans of having been in contact with Tibetans in exile and may have detained them,” the source added.
The source said, “Jamyang Tashi was detained in 2025, held for six months, and then released. However, he was detained again in early February 2026. The reasons for this latest detention and his current whereabouts remain unknown. Chinese police have threatened his family not to disclose any information regarding his detention.”
According to Article 64 of Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China, "Within 24 hours after a person has been detained, his family or the unit to which he belongs shall be notified of the reasons for detention and the place of custody." However, Jamyang Tashi and other two Tibetans detained more than four months and the families of them are not informed by the Chinese police of the reasons for their detention and their whereabouts. Therefore, the Chinese police are breaking their own law.
China-Tibet: The one-thing you need to know:
Over the past 70 decades, there has been ongoing political repression, social discrimination, economic marginalization, environmental destruction, and cultural assimilation, particularly due to Chinese migration to Tibet which is fueling intense resentment among the people of occupied Tibet.
The communist-totalitarian state of China began its 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.
