Arrested, tortured, released

A good news from Tibet, as Reporters Without Borders informs us, is that Jigme Gyatso, a 39-year old Buddhist monk who was arrested for helping as a cameraman to make a documentary (called Leaving Fear Behind) about the Land of Snows, was released last week. The bad news is that the monk has been severely tortured during the seven months he was held. The interrogators, according to the production company of the film, “beat him continuously and hanged him by his feet from the ceiling for hours and kept him tied for days on the interrogation chair.”

The 25-minute documentary—which is now online—was originally shown to a small group of foreign reporters in secret in Beijing during the Olympics in August. The maker of the fim, Dhondup Wangchen, is still detained in Ershilipu prison in Xining province.

Since the events of March, Chinese authorities have created a climate of fear in the towns and around the monasteries by killing, arresting and torturing many dissidents.