-By Tibet Watch
Pasang Norbu’s bike tour company ordered shutdown and all his bicycles were confiscated.
Tibet Watch has learned that on 11 March 2022, the Chinese police authorities of Gamba County arrested Pasang Norbu, a Tibetan entrepreneur of a bike tour company, aged in his 20s, in Gamba County (Tib:གམ་པ་རྫོང་།).
Despite his company Cycling Travel Guide Service (Tib:རྐང་འཁོར་ཡུལ་སྐོར་སྣེ་ལེན་ཞབས་ཞུ་ཁང་།) being officially registered, the police had ordered its shutdown. After Pasang continued running his business to support his family, he was badly beaten and taken away by the police. All of his bicycles were also confiscated.
The anonymous Tibetan source explained: “Norbu had to pay 18,000 yuan (approximately 2170 GBP ) to obtain the [business registration] licence and his business was going successfully. But the county police authorities ordered him to close his cycling travel guide service in the name of unsafe and illegal activities.”
Since his arrest, his whereabouts and current situation remain unknown even to his own family of two. His father having passed away when he was a student in secondary school, Pasang left his school to support his mother Tsamkyi (Tib:འཚམས་སྐྱིད།) and 13-year-old younger sister, and founded the company in 2020. He is known to be a very friendly and courteous person, who is loved by the local people. Click here to read more.