17/04/2023
Chinese authorities in Tibet arrested a woman for contacting Tibetans outside the western autonomous region amid an increase in surveillance and security searches before a politically sensitive anniversary, a Tibetan with knowledge of the situation said.
Police arrested Yangtso, 23, from the town of Shigatse on March 2, after checking her cell phone and seeing that she contacted and sent photos to people outside the Tibet Autonomous Region.
She is being detained at the local police station of Namling county, said a Tibetan living in exile, who declined to be identified so as to speak freely about the matter.
“Yangtso’s family members have no contact with her at the moment,” the source said.
China rules Tibet with an iron grip, closely monitoring and restricting Tibetans’ political activities and expressions of cultural and religious identity.
The crackdown is intensifying in the run-up to March 10, known as Tibetan Uprising Day, which commemorates the uprising of 1959 during which tens of thousands of Tibetans took to the streets of the regional capital Lhasa in protest against China’s invasion and occupation of their homeland a decade earlier.