Monks from Labrang Monastery in Gansu province staged a protest in front of a state-organized media tour for foreign and Chinese journalists on Wednesday April 9.

According to information received by International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), a group of 15 monks burst into the courtyard where around 20 Chinese and foreign journalists were assembled and spoke about having no human rights, and about the Dalai Lama returning to Tibet.

One of the journalists who spoke to the monks told ICT: “The monks were very emotional, and one of them was crying. They said that they were not asking for Tibetan independence, but for human rights, and that they had no human rights now. They spoke mostly in Tibetan although then switched to Chinese and also some words of English to communicate. When some of them saw the photographers they threw their robes over their heads so we couldn’t see their faces, but kept talking.”

According to several sources, all of the monks have now been detained and there are fears for their welfare in custody.

This was the second protest at Labrang in recent weeks following major unrest that broke out at the monastery with monks and laypeople calling for independence while marching with the Tibetan flag on March 16. All of the Labrang monks who were detained following this protest, which was broken up by armed police, were severely beaten, according to reliable reports. One of the monks who demonstrated on March 16 and who has now been released from custody was apparently tortured so severely that his psychological condition is severely affected.

The recent demonstration at Labrang is the second to interrupt a state-organized media tour since the wave of protests began across the Tibetan plateau on March 10, the anniversary of the 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Monks from the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa protested in front of a group of foreign journalists on March 28 after authorities allowed foreign journalists into Lhasa for the first time since the effective closure of the city to outsiders. The monks, some of whom were crying, told journalists: “The government is always telling lies, it’s all lies” and “We want freedom and we want peace”.

According to eyewitnesses, today’s demonstration at Labrang lasted for approximately ten minutes and officials did not interfere, although the press “minders” from Beijing seemed uncomfortable. At a press conference after today’s demonstration at Labrang, journalists asked about the monks who protested. A member of the Democratic Management Committee (the administrative apparatus of the state in religious institutions in Tibet) of the monastery told them that if they had broken national security laws, they would be dealt with “according to the law”, and if they were found to have broken rules of the monastery, the monastery would deal with the case.