Beautiful! Backup Arrives in Ferguson . . . From India!

[magical thyme]

57. Again, Tibetan monks living in Tibet would not be allowed to travel.

Again, monks living in Tibet would not be allowed to travel to MO or anywhere else. They are more likely to in prison than anywhere outside Tibet. There are fewer journalists allowed in Tibet than in N. Korea.

http://freetibet.org/about/religion
In Tibet, Buddhist nuns, monks and religious institutions are seen as a threat to the occupying Chinese state.

Monks and nuns have been beaten, jailed and tortured. Many have set themselves alight in protest against China's suppression of religious freedom and Tibetan culture, including 35-year-old Palden Choetso (below)....

Nunneries and monasteries are kept under the sort of tight surveillance normally reserved for terrorist groups. ...

Monks and nuns are regularly subjected to ‘patriotic re-education programmes’ (PRE), for weeks at a time...

The penalties for refusing to participate or failing the programme include fines, beatings and expulsion from a nunnery.

...In 1990 a 13-year-old nun, Ngawang Sangdrol (pictured below), participated in a peaceful protest and was held for nine months.

She was interrogated, severely beaten with iron water pipes and tortured with electric cattle prods. She was arrested again in 1992 for "counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement", and this time received a three-year sentence at Drapchi Prison – Tibet’s largest and most-feared jail.

A year later Ngawang Sangdrol and 13 other nuns had their sentences extended by six years for singing Tibetan nationalist songs in prison. Copies of the songs were smuggled out and heard around the world..

...China uses its military might to suppress Tibet.

Why China fears phones

But one of the things it fears most is not Tibetan retaliation, but Tibetan communication.

These devices are used to document the brutal hostility of the Chinese state and broadcast it to the world.

....When the anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising coincided with the appointment of a new Chinese president in March 2013, the authorities increased checks on mobile phones and internet access was cut in particularly sensitive areas.

Special censor groups visited internet cafes and monasteries seeking evidence of communications with the wider world. Anyone with a record of overseas calls was arrested.

Three monks - Songrab Gyatso, Dragsang and Yeshi Sangpo – were forcefully arrested in December 2012, accused of sharing information and photos about a student protest Serchen County.

Like diplomats and human rights observers, foreign journalists are rarely allowed entry into Tibet, and when they are, they are closely chaperoned by Chinese officials.

Reporters Without Borders ranked China 175 out of the 180 countries on its Press Freedom Index 2014.