Gendun Lhundrub, 46, the Tibetan writer and poet who was arrested in December 2020 in Amdo [Ch: Qinghai] has been held incommunicado since then; his family know nothing of his whereabouts or his health. Lhundrub was a monk at Rongwo monastery in Rebgong; Radio Free Asia reports that he was “monitored by authorities for signs of political dissent over a long period of time before being detained”.
UK-based research and advocacy group Tibet Watch reports that Lhundrub was arrested while on his way from Rongwo Monastery to Rebgong County to attend a dialectics session, they report their source as saying that the only witness was a vegetable seller who saw him “being forcibly taken into a black car”. He has not been seen by anyone since then; his family was informed by telephone about his imminent trial on September 27 but no information about the trial or his whereabouts has been revealed to date. There are reports that his family have heard that he “is being forced to undergo political re-education.”
Before his arrest, says Tibet Watch, he had attended a workshop on sinicisation of Tibetan Buddhism in Rebgong County; during the workshop Gendun raised questions to the facilitators, including asking them, “… how does one sinicise Tibetan Buddhism?”, which resulted in a verbal altercation between them.
RFA suggests his arrest may have been connected with his possible questioning of the order given to him by the authorities to help translate Tibetan Buddhist texts into Mandarin Chinese as his arrest took place shortly after.
Tibet Watch reports that In October 2020, two months before his arrest, Gendun published a book entitled Khorwa and urged fellow Tibetans to support it. He claimed that the book presents the truth as it is without bowing to orders. The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy has reported that a Tibetan language website that Gendun administered was recently shut down, amongst many others.
Gendun, also known by his pen name Lhamkok, is a prolific writer who has published numerous books since 1994. He is a highly revered intellectual who is known for his active involvement in the preservation and promotion of the Tibetan Language in the Rongwo Region. He was born in a nomadic family in 1974 in Rebgong County [Ch: Tongren], Malho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in Amdo [Ch: Qinghai] Province.
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