Grip tightens on Tibet's monasteries
The Communist Party has further tightened its grip on Tibetan monasteries by ensuring that only monks who are loyal to the regime may lead religious houses.
Du Qinglin, chief of the party's United Front Work Department, told a conference in Xigaze, Tibet , over the weekend that the management of Tibetan monasteries and temples must appoint monks who are 'politically reliable' to the management committees, according to the website of the People's Daily.
Monastery rules had to be in line with laws and government regulations, and monasteries were required to step up patriotic education and strengthen monks' awareness of 'national unity and social stability', he said.
Du urged officials to embrace the central government's policy on religious affairs and called on Tibetan religious personnel to play a leading role in 'anti-separatist struggles'.
Beijing-based Tibetan activist Tserang Woeser said the central government had always been suspicious of Tibetan clergy, and the ethnic uprising in 2008 had further strengthened its view that monks were 'destabilising elements' that it had to keep an eye on.
She said the management committees of monasteries had always been headed by government officials and monks had to pass stringent political scrutiny before they became members.
'But I believe, after this, the authorities will step up their control on monasteries, and life for the monks will be even harsher,' she said.
In January, President Hu Jintao told a government work symposium on Tibet that the Communist Party's policies must be strictly adhered to in the management of religious affairs in ethnic Tibetan areas and that efforts must be made to contain unrest.
Observers said Hu's speech was a direct response to massive anti-government rioting in March 2008, which also rocked Tibetan-populated areas in Sichuan , Qinghai and Gansu .
Barry Sautman, an associate professor of social science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said that after the unrest in 2008, the central government was shocked to find that many Tibetan intellectuals, monks and elites previously thought of as loyal to Beijing had apparently switched their allegiance and become sympathetic to Tibetan nationalism, he said.
'They've found that people who seemed to be on the government side turned out not to be.'
