China: Civil unrest continues in Tibet
21 Oct 2010
Rebkong, Tibet Plateau: Reports emanating from Tibet say that more than 1,000 Tibetan students staged peaceful rallies Tuesday in an important town of the Amdo province to protest Chinese education policies. Reports, including photographs of protesting students, have been brought out of the region by Tibetan advocacy groups on Wednesday.
The protests were in and around the Tibetan town of Rebkong, also known as Tongren in Chinese, located in the Amdo province (Chinese Qinghai) on the edge of the Tibetan plateau.
The town has one of the most prominent monasteries in the Tibetan world, the Rongwo Gompa, and monks there have a long tradition of battling Chinese oppression. According to reports, the protesting students who were shouting ''equality of ethnic groups'' and ''freedom of language'' were also joined by monks.
The Rongwo Gompa monastery is amongst the most important centres of Tibetan Buddhism.
The reports have been brought to the attention of the world by the International Campaign for Tibet. Photographs and video of the protests have been circulating on the Internet.
The town contains the Rongwo Gompa monastery, or the Longwu Temple, also known as the Lower Wutun monastery. The monastery has several dozen halls and thousands of monk cells. The grand hall has a number of spectacular statues of Shakyamuni (Lord Buddha) and others including a 11 metre gilded statue of the founder, Tsongkapa (Zongkaba) on a stand 26 metres in circumference.