BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese authorities have arrested five Tibetan monks amid resistance to a nearly three-year government campaign to stamp out support for the Dalai Lama, a monitoring group said Tuesday.

The monks from Kirti, one of the largest Tibetan monasteries with more than 2,000 monks, were arrested in November and December after authorities tightened controls on religious activities, the London-based Tibet Information Network said.

One of the detained monks has been given a three-year prison sentence, the group said. It added that a Tibetan businessman and a former monk were arrested and two 24-year-old monks were released this month after being severely beaten in detention.

Chinese authorities appear to have identified the detained monks as leaders of protests last year at Kirti, the group said.

The crackdown at the monastery took place in a mountainous area of southwest Sichuan province 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of Tibet's capital, Lhasa.

Officials entered Kirti in May, ordered monks to hand over speeches and documents about the Dalai Lama and denounced the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists as a separatist who had to be opposed, the group said.

Authorities ordered that monks who resisted their orders, and all monks under age 18, would not be allowed to stay in the monastery, TIN said.

Many monks walked out of a meeting with the officials, and some tore down posters put up in the monastery or threw stones at their rooms, TIN said.

Monks also circulated letters voicing support for the Dalai Lama and put up their own posters protesting the officials' demands, the group said.

Many Tibetans remain loyal to the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule. From exile in India, the Nobel Peace Prize winner has led an international campaign for Tibetan autonomy.

To stamp out support for the Dalai Lama, Chinese authorities have subjected monasteries to "patriotic education" campaigns in which monks have been forced to denounce the Tibetan leader as a separatist.

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