

Dharamsala based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) today released official Chinese documents that they say

expose “the scale and depth of state-sanctioned repression in Diru,” an area in the ‘Tibet Autonomous Region’, that has seen continuous

crackdowns on monasteries and civil society in the recent past.

TCHRD said that the new rules contained in the documents targets what the Chinese see as being the Lama's influence on ordinary people,

restricts the size and finances of monasteries, sets educational syllabus in monasteries, and even forbids ordinary people from carving Buddhist

mantras on stones which Tibetans consider a meritorious act. Monasteries are threatened with having their religious status stripped and denial

of rights to harvest Yartsa Gonbu, a local herb that has been an important source of economic activity in recent years.

The leaked document was issued by the Diru County government on September 19 is divided into 3 chapters, 24 sections and 74 articles,

and orders within the document were to go into effect immediately..