The Times Online reports on the detainment of Zhogs Dung, a leading Tibetan intellectual, for his efforts to raise money for victims of this month’s earthquake:

Tra Gyal, better known by his penname of Zhogs Dung, was detained at 5.30pm on Friday in Xining, capital of the western province of Qinghai where the April 14 tremor killed more than 2,000 people, Tibetan sources said.

Half a dozen police picked him up from his office at the Qinghai Nationalities Publishing House, took him to his home and carried out a meticulous search of his study, taking him away at about 10.00pm.

The officers returned in the early hours of the morning and removed two computers, written documents and pictures and came back again at about 3.30am to show the writer’s wife a formal arrest warrant for her husband.

Tra Gyal – both first names – who is aged about 45, has gained renown as Tibet’s premier intellectual and essayist, a moderniser who has not hesitated to credit religion in the deeply Buddhist region and who has long been seen as closely associated with the ruling Communist Party.

However, he appears to have run foul of the authorities in recent weeks through his writings that have become more critical of Chinese rule of Tibetan regions, and also because of his activism after the earthquake.

Read the rest here.

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