Dhi lhaden in updated photo. Photo Credit: Tibet Watch

Dharamshala: A Tibetan writer who was arrested by the Chinese authorities two years ago continues to remain untraceable at a secret location in Chengdu city, Sichuan Province. Lobsang Lhundup, known popularly by his pen name Dhi Lhaden, was taken into custody in June 2019, Tibetan sources say.

The Chengdu security officials have likely arrested Lobsang Lhundup, a former monk at Larung Gar on the account of using banned teaching materials at a private education center, where he was working as a teacher, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA), quoting an anonymous source.

According to the report, the relatives and friends of Lobsang Lhundup encouraged locals to withhold information about his detention, hoping the authorities would release him sooner. “Lhundup is a friendly person and known to many people, and his friends have avoided talking about him till now in the hope that he might be released,” the source told RFA. However, two years on, his lengthy incommunicado detention continues raising concerns for the writer’s fate. When news of Tibetans’ arbitrary detention or arrest are reported from exile Tibetan community, the Chinese authorities tend to subject the Tibetans in their custody to even harsher ill treatment and prison terms, leading families, friends and communities withhold such news fearing for the life of the person in detention.

On 4 December, 2020, the Chinese authorities summoned Lobsang Lhundup’s family through an official notice to discuss the case. When they attended, they were not allowed to meet him and no decision was made leaving the case pending indefinitely.

Lobsang Lhundup aka Dhi Lhaden is a former monk, intellectual, and writer born in 1971 at Dida Village in Pema (Ch: Baima) County, Golog (Ch: Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, in the Tibetan province of Amdo. At the age of 13, he became a monk at a local monastery and after two years, he joined the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute in Serta (Ch: Seda) County, Kardze (Ch: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. At 27, he travelled to Lhasa to pursue further studies in Drepung and Sera monasteries. Since 2008, after the 2008 pan-Tibet protests against the Chinese government, he travelled widely to various places in Tibet to record the observations of fellow Tibetans about the protests. Lhundup has written and published a number of books and articles. He has a wife and a daughter.

– Filed by UN, EU, and Human Rights Desk/DIIR