Ngawa County

Ngawa County
—  County  —
Chinese transcription(s)
- Chinese	阿坝县
- Pinyin	Ābà Xiàn
People of Ngawa County
Ngawa County Location of Daocheng in Sichuan
Coordinates: 32°54′N 101°42′E / 32.9°N 101.7°E / 32.9; 101.7
Country	China
Province	Sichuan
Prefecture	Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture
Time zone	China Standard (UTC+8)
Postal code

Ngawa County (Chinese: 阿坝县; pinyin: Ābà Xiàn), or Aba or Ngaba, is a county of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. It is located in the remote northwestern part of the prefecture, on the border with Qinghai and Gansu. The capital is Ngawa City.^[1]

Conflict

On 16 March, a 20-year-old Tibetan monk called Phuntsok set fire to himself at a market, in protest against allegedly repressive government policies in Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan populated areas in China. He died in hospital early in the morning of 17 March.

Following Phuntsok’s self-immolation, hundreds of monks from the same monastery, Kirti monastery in Ngaba County, and other local residents staged another protest. Several of them were briefly detained and many others have since been taken into custody. Lobsang Choepel, 24, and Lobsang Ngodup, 32, both monks from Kirti monastery were detained on around 30 March. Two other monks from Kirti monastery, Dhonyoe Dorjee, aged around 34, and Tenzin Gyamtso, 27, were detained on 8 April. All were detained at the monastery and are believed to be held at the Ngaba county police detention centre.

The police in Beijing detained Lobsang Tsepak on 25 March. He is a former Kirti monastery monk, studying at the Central University for Nationalities (Minzu University) in Beijing. A-dor, 35, Dorjee, around 35, Palko, 40, and Woesel Dorjee, 28, were all detained on 23 March in the neighbouring Namda Township in Dzamthang County by the county police. They are believed to be held at the county police detention centre. The four had taken part in a demonstration in Dzamthang County, in solidarity with the monks in Ngaba County.

On 12 April, the authorities detained the brother and uncle of Phuntsok, the monk who self-immolated – Lobsang Dhargay, 22, and Lobsang Tsondue, around 46. Both had previously been detained on 22 March and released on 25 March. They are also believed to be held at Ngaba county police detention centre.

Footnotes

1. ^ Dorje (2009), pp. 778-781.

References

• *Dorje, Gyurme (2009). Footprint Tibet Handbook. Footprint Books. ISBN 978 1 906098 32 2.

Coordinates: 32°54′N 101°42′E / 32.9°N 101.7°E / 32.9; 101.7