Larung Gar
As the Serta Larung Five Science Buddhist Academy grew in reputation and size, more Chinese and international students arrived and built residences to receive teachings from Nyingma Terton Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok.
[3] Monks and nuns continued to move to Larung Gar to study, and the international population from Tibet, China, Mongolia, and from other Asian countries was said to officially be 10,000 people.
By June 2016, Chinese authorities ordered a cut in the number residents by half to 5000, with no more than 3,500 nuns and 1,500 monks, as the huge influx of people living in DIY housing was becoming a safety and fire hazard.
"[5] Condemnation of China's demolitions at Larung Gar has been made by the European Parliament in 2016,[6] and by United Nations human rights experts in 2017.
It was officially founded in 1980 in the uninhabited valley by Nyingma lama Khyabje Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok,[11] while it evolved from his mountain retreat previously established there during the Cultural Revolution.
The community grew around Larung Gar's Academy, where monks, nuns, and vow-holding lay people of both Tibetan and Chinese origins study under one of four major spiritual institutions at the Academy: As Larung Gar grew, more than 1,000 new homes were constructed every year by both professional crews and by monks and nuns themselves with the help of their families and friends.
And by 1998, 4,500 nuns, 4,000 monks, and nearly 1,000 Chinese students together lived, studied, and meditated at Larung Gar, according to the report from International Campaign for Tibet.
[13] Also in 2001, mass demolitions and forced evictions of monks, nuns and lay people began after Sichuan authorities wanted signed documents denouncing the Dalai Lama, actions during which Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok was detained for a year.
[14] An early report states the Sichuan Religious Affairs Bureau, of the Chinese government, confirmed to Reuters that students were being required to leave the Academy, "because of concerns about social stability and at the order of central authorities."
[16]Additional demolitions by Chinese authorities continued in 2002 after Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok was released from detainment at a military hospital in Barkham County, and just before his death.
[18][19] On July 22, 2016, the BBC reported evidence from the campaign group Free Tibet that a government work team, accompanied by Chinese police and plainclothes members of the armed forces, had begun to demolish more buildings at Larung Gar in response to an order made the previous month by local authorities.
[29] A report in August 2017 found that the demolitions were still being continued, not due to overpopulation – the area is expansive – but because of a government program to turn the sacred site into a 'tourist attraction'.
[30] The report also found that the Tibetans whose houses were destroyed were forced to sign documents that legally bound them to renounce their land rights in Larung Gar.
The report also refers to a video in which 12 Tibetan nuns, dressed in religious robes, are dancing on a stage in front of ostensibly an audience of officials.
The Associated Press states the countries "criticized China's treatment of minority groups, especially in Xinjiang and Tibet" and that The predominantly Western statement said its 39 signatories shared the concerns expressed by 50 independent U.N. human rights experts in an 'extraordinary letter' in June in which they urged the international community to 'take all appropriate measures' to monitor China and 'act collectively and decisively' to ensure its government respects human rights.
