In the summer of 1988 Lhundup Monlam put posters on the walls stating the need for Tibetan people to have basic human rights and that Tibet is an independent country. Police then arrested him and asked him to sign a document that read he was to be detained under suspicion of putting up posters and producing pamphlets. He was held in detention for 6 months in Gyantse detention from where he was transferred to Nyatri prison in Shigatse and then to Drapchi on 23 October 1990.