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Pro-Tibet protests caused headlines worldwide, including at the Olympic Games (Reinhard Krause/Reuters)
A Tibetan monk who is one of a very few to speak openly of his mistreatment by Chinese police after demonstrations against Beijing in March was arrested today when he emerged from two months in hiding.More than 70 police, including members of the paramilitary People’s Armed Police, raided the dormitory of the Labrang monastery in western China that was Jigme’s home, sources told The Times.Police vehicles, their sirens wailing, drew up outside the monastery just after midday. Armed officers poured out and entered Jigme’s cell near the front of the ancient edifice that sprawls up a hillside in Gansu province.A source said: “We don’t believe they gave any reason for his arrest. They came at lunchtime when most of the monks were in their rooms and there were fewer people around.”Jigme, who only uses one name, had been in hiding, moving from safe house to safe house on the vast Tibetan plateau, ever since he made a video in late August - later posted on Youtube - in which he described two months of interrogation and abuse by police.Friends told The Times that he decided to return to his monastery after police, who had visited his family, said he would be safe from arrest if he returned to his monastery. With the onset of winter, he decided to believe the authorities.He is one of the few Tibetans to speak openly of his experiences at the hands of the security forces since 22 people were killed in violent anti-Chinese demonstrations in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in early March.The demonstration quickly spread to other Tibetan regions of China.In his video, in which he shows his face, Jigme described how he had been dragged off the street while waiting for his shoes to be mended by four uniformed guards who pulled him into a white van. He was driven to a guest-house run by local paramilitary police and held even though he insists he took no part in the anti-Chinese unrest that swept Tibetan regions of China in March.He was taken to a prison in a town near the monastery. He told the Associated Press: “They demanded to know if I was a leader of the protest and what contact I had with the Dalai Lama. They hung me up by my hands and beat my hard all over with their fists.” He said similar treatment was meted out to other Tibetan prisoners, and family members were refused permission to bring them additional food and warm clothing.He was twice taken to hospital. The second time, after lying unconscious for six days, he was handed over to his family who took him to another hospital where he recovered after 20 days of treatment and a rest. He returned in May to the monastery where he his a member of the Gyuto Dratsang, or Upper Tantric College, one of its six institutes of learning.He told one interviewer: “I’m not afraid of being taken in. I have no regrets. I am not guilty of anything."
Jane Macartney in Beijing
As in the days of Noah....
