"Politically reliable" monks chosen to manage Tibetan monasteries

"Competent Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns who are politically reliable” should be “selected” to manage monasteries in Tibet, according to senior Communist Party official Du Qinglin in Lhasa, quoted in Xinhua, the official Chinese state media on 16 August.

Qinglin refers to this selection process as "democratic management", despite the fact that being state-managed it is anything but democratic, and claims it is to ensure the “lawful rights of monasteries, orderly religious activities and normal religious practice”.

Buddhist monasteries and nunneries under Chinese rule of Tibet are run by “management committees” who take precedence over spiritual leaders. These management committees are, as Qinglin so clearly articulates, chosen by the Chinese administration in order to maintain political control over monks and nuns. This state management of religious institutions reflects the ideology of the Communist Party that state security takes precedence over all other considerations, including religious freedom. Tibetan monks and nuns, for whom religious beliefs are paramount, and who regularly protest peacefully against Chinese measures in Tibet, are seen as a grave threat to state security and so must be strictly controlled.

Other measures employed by the Chinese administration to control monks and nuns in Tibet include patriotic re-education which nuns and monks are forced to attend and in which they are forced to denounce their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and to put the Chinese state above and before their religion. Those who do not participate satisfactorily risk being fined, put under surveillance and being stripped of their religious rights.

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