Local Tibetan monk Geshe Sonam Thargye is desperately trying to find information about his niece, Sangye Lhamo. The 26 year old Buddhist nun was arrested in Tibet on Wednesday morning while participating in a peaceful protest in the Tibetan town of Ganzi in Sichuan Province. Two other nuns were arrested with her.

Email Foreign Minister Stephen Smith on behalf of Sangye Lhamo.

Geshe Sonam, who runs a Buddhist centre near Geelong, says that his family in Ganzi cannot find out where Sangye Lhamo or the other nuns have been taken or what will happen to them.

The Australia Tibet Council has asked the Australian Government to make urgent enquiries about Sangye Lhamo’s whereabouts and wellbeing.

All Tibetan areas have been in a state of virtual lockdown since the outbreak of unrest in early March.

“It is not easy to get information from place to place within Tibet or to send information to the outside world. People cannot move around freely. People cannot send letters freely either, because they must get the stamps from the police station”, Geshe Sonam said.

According to the Geshe’s sources, there have been about 150 arrests in the Ganzi area since March, mainly involving Buddhist nuns.

According to reports by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in India, Wednesday’s protest by the three nuns was staged in the town’s main market square. They chanted “Swift return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet”, “Long live the Dalai Lama”, “Freedom for Tibet” and “Immediate release of all political prisoners”. They also distributed pamphlets calling for Tibetan independence.

An hour later, a solo protest was staged by a 21 year old female student, Rigden Lhamo, who unfurled a Tibetan national flag and shouted similar slogans. Security forces fired gunshots and Rigden was severely beaten before being detained. It is not clear whether she was shot, although at least one eyewitness reported seeing blood on her body when she was taken away.

See “More than 80 nuns detained after peaceful protests continue in Kham” for more details on the protest.