Nepal: Tibetan Protesters Detained After Prayer Service For Self-Immolating Monks

KATMANDU, Nepal -- Nepalese police detained more than 100 Tibetan exiles on Tuesday who had gathered to pray for nine Tibetans who set themselves on fire to protest against Chinese rule.

About 400 Tibetans, including 150 monks, held a prayer meeting on the outskirts of Katmandu in honor of the monks, former monks and a nun who have immolated themselves since March in a restive Tibetan area of western China that is under martial law-type police controls. At least five died of their injuries, while the condition of the others is not known.

Nepalese police in riot gear entered the prayer meeting at the Tibetan Refugee Center and pulled down a banner of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. This angered the Tibetans at the meeting, who poured into the streets to protest. They chanted anti-China slogans calling for a free Tibet and for China to "leave our home."

More than 100 protesters were taken in trucks to detention centers, according to a police officer at the scene who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

The monks were not among those detained.

There have been a number of similar protests in the past in Nepal. Police generally don't charge the protesters and they are usually released by nightfall.

Nepal's government has said it cannot allow protests against friendly nations, including China. Nepal is also under pressure from the Chinese government to stop them.

Thousands of Tibetans live in Nepal and hundreds pass through Nepal on their way from Tibet to Dharmasala in India where the Dalai Lama lives.

Comments

[FACTISFACT]

12:19 PM on 11/01/2011

I am stunned to see the first class china wall security in the north of India. China will get just vaporize before entering Indian soil.

[Sasa Milosevic]

09:38 AM on 11/01/2011

The faith of these people is often in shadow not only due national and international political interest, but already the world is obssessed by problems of bigger religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Arab World and religious correlation in this part of planet, pay attention No 1, leaving small religious groups in very hard and problematic situation. Unfortunately interantional community actively reacts only after drastic form of conflict, bloodshed and discovering of massive graves...

[HanMeiRen]

06:26 PM on 11/02/2011

You are dead wrong to frame the question in the domain of religion.

The fundamental question is a political one, i.e. the Tibet sovereignty.

If you put the event under that prism it is much more easier to understand the causes and effects.

[Sasa Milosevic]

10:00 PM on 11/02/2011

This cannot be observed as an isolated political incident.

Tibet was and will stay one of the most significant religious centres in the world so every forcible attempt of China to " get" it is in same time the attack on religiosity of people living there.

The fact that monks took participation in defending the Tibet by self - immolation tells about also religious character of this event...

[Alexander Ung]

07:56 AM on 11/01/2011

Nothing big happen in the world? Make do with local law enforcement issue from Nepal.