Reported by Palden
Translated by Choegyal Kyab
The Chinese government has stationed large numbers of troops at Larung Gar in Serta and imposed tight restrictions across the religious encampment, sharply limiting access for tourists and pilgrims as authorities press ahead with the demolition of monks’ and nuns’ quarters.
The demolition of the residential quarters set among the dwellings of the monks, nuns, and lay practitioners is ongoing. Under government directives, the checkpoint on the access road to Larung Gar is admitting only a small number of local people and tourists, and even then under close control. More troops than before have been deployed inside the encampment, monitoring the movements of tourists, residents, and monastics alike.
A well-informed source said the government is now strictly barring tourists and pilgrims arriving from within Tibet and elsewhere in China from entering the encampment. The few who are admitted must travel by public transport under arrangements set by the checkpoint — private and rental vehicles are not permitted — and are confined to assigned areas rather than free to move as they wish, the source added.
A second source said permit-holders had previously been allowed to fly drones over Larung Gar to take photographs and video, but the checkpoint banned all drone filming once the demolitions began last month. Troops in military uniform, along with plainclothes personnel posing as ordinary civilians, have since been deployed to conduct open and covert surveillance, repeatedly disrupting local monks, nuns, residents, and visitors.
Some years ago, the government declared that Larung Gar had too many buildings and was therefore unsafe, and resolved to demolish the area around the Gyutrul Lhakhang. Because that area holds temples, shrine halls, and circumambulation paths, the monastic administration filed repeated appeals — and those appeals bore fruit, sparing the site. The reprieve proved narrow, however: rather than the Gyutrul Lhakhang area, it was the residential quarters among the monastics’ dwellings that the authorities moved to demolish. Since July 13 this year, those quarters have been torn down one after another, and the work continues. Monks and nuns whose quarters have been destroyed have been barred from remaining at Larung Gar and forcibly sent back to their home regions or to monasteries there.
On the 11th of this month, during the demolition, a monk who raised a photograph of the 10th Panchen Lama in protest was arrested and taken away by police; his whereabouts remain unknown.
The government has repeatedly used such pretexts — that Larung Gar had too many monastic dwellings, or that they lacked legal documentation — to demolish residences in 2001, 2016, and 2019, capping the number of monks and nuns each time and forcing many who had come from other areas to return home. Controls at the encampment have tightened year after year.
