religious freedom

25/04/2019 News / Thematic Reports

The United Nations Continuing ‘Search’ for Tibet’s Panchen Lama

By Ngawang Choephel Drakmargyapon*

“If I die, I think two to three years, I think the Chinese may choose even one Dalai Lama. But Tibetans (will) not accept that. The Panchen Lama which they choose, some Chinese officials also they describe as ‘Fake Panchen Lama’.”

~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, TIME Magazine, 7 March 2019

This report is an account of the largely unknown attempts made to ascertain the whereabouts, the well-being and the fate of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the Eleventh Panchen Lama of Tibet at the United Nations.[1] It attempts to provide a comprehensive narrative on the efforts by the international community over the past more than two decades to determine the fate of the Panchen Lama by particularly highlighting how the mechanisms of the UN human rights system have played a crucial role to help the Tibetans, followers of Tibetan Buddhism, supporters of Tibet and others by initiating interventions on the case directly with the Chinese authorities.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was recognised on 14 May 1995 by His Holiness the Dalai Lama during a ceremony in Dharamsala, India. His Holiness declared: “Today is the auspicious day when the Buddha first gave the Kalachakra teaching. The Kalachakra teachings have a special connection with the Panchen Lamas. On this occasion, which also happens to be the Vaisaki, it is with great joy that I am able to proclaim the reincarnation of Panchen Rinpoche. I have recognized Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, born on April 25, 1989, whose father is Kunchok Phuntsog, and mother Dechen Chodon, of Lhari district in Nagchu, Tibet, as the true reincarnation of Panchen Lama.”

12/01/2017 News

China: Stop violating right to freedom of religion and belief of Tibetans

Directive issued by Dechen County Police and Government

Chinese authorities issued two separate directives last month to prohibit the Tibetan monastic community and the general public from participating, either in person or remotely, in the Kalachakra religious teachings given by the Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India. Organised by the Central Tibetan Administration, the 34th Kalachakra teachings began on 3 January and will go on until 14 in Bodh Gaya in the northern Indian state of Bihar.

14/03/2015 News

TCHRD highlights human rights violations in Tibet at ongoing UNHRC session

TCHRD’s senior researcher John Gaudette along with Professor Heiner Bielefeld, Derek Brett, and Dr Ojot Miru Ojulu at the side event organised by IFOR in Geneva.

Every year the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has three regular sessions. The session in March is usually the most important. The March session is attended by top government officials and more NGOs than the other sessions. To accommodate the large number of officials and participants, the March session is one week longer than the other regular sessions.

This year the March session began on 2 March and will last until 27 March. Given the ongoing and serious human rights violations in Tibet, TCHRD took the opportunity to send two senior researchers to the UNHRC to discuss the situation in Tibet. On Friday 13 March, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) organized a side event on religious repression in East Asia. John Gaudette, a senior researcher at TCHRD, participated in the event as a panelist. The other panelists included the UN Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom and Belief Professor Heiner Bielefeld and Derek Brett, IFOR’s representative to the UN in Geneva. The event was moderated by Dr Ojot Miru Ojulu from the Lutheran World Federation.

25/04/2014 News / TCHRD Statements

TCHRD commemorates 25th birthday of Tibet’s disappeared Panchen Lama

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the XIth Panchen Lama of Tibet

Today marks the 25^th birthday of the XIth Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, one of the most important spiritual leaders of Tibet, who disappeared when he was 6 years old.[i] This is the 19^th year in succession when Tibetans have to commemorate the birthday of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima in his absence.

On 14 May 1995, His Holiness the Dalai Lama recognised Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, a son of nomadic parents, as the reincarnate Panchen Lama. A day later, the boy and his parents were disappeared from their home in Lhari County in Nagchu Prefecture in Central Tibet.[ii] The Chinese government initially denied allegations that he had been disappeared by Chinese government agents. A few months after the disappearance, Chinese government appointed Gyaltsen Norbu as its own Panchen Lama.

04/04/2014 News

Monk sentenced to 18 years in prison in restive Diru County

Chinese security forces have stepped up their repression of Drong Na Monastery whose principal chant master was recently sentenced in secret to 18 years in prison in Diru (Ch; Biru) County in Nagchu (Ch: Naqu) Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), in the Tibetan province of Kham.

Thardoe Gyaltsen, the monastery’s principal chant master was sentenced on an unknown date in January 2014 even as other monks were forced to stop their religious activities, shut down their monastic quarters and an unknown number were also detained. The monastery has about 90 monks. Gyaltsen was detained in December 2013 but his family members and relatives had no clue on the location of his detention. It is not clear on what charges he was sentenced.

Local Tibetans are of the view that Gyaltsen was primarily targeted for starting Tibetan language and culture classes in the monastery, which became quite popular as around 300 students attended these classes. “The classes have made enormous contribution in preserving and promoting Tibetan language and culture in the local area. Therefore under various pretexts of committing political crimes, the Chinese authorities forced [the monastery] to shut down the classes, with the aim of preventing the study of Tibetan language and culture. The police just barged into the monastery, ordered monks to close down their residences and detained chant master Thardoe Gyaltsen on charges of committing political crimes,” said the source. At present, no religious activities such as holding daily prayer sessions are allowed at the monastery.

08/02/2014 News / TCHRD Statements

Obama could do more to make religious freedom a key objective of US foreign policy

Ngawang Jamyang in a photo taken in early 2000's. The learned Buddhist scholar died in police custody less than a month after his arrest in December 2013 — Ngawang Jamyang in a photo taken in early 2000’s. The learned Buddhist scholar died in police custody less than a month after his arrest in December 2013

On Thursday morning just before Max Baucus was confirmed by the US Senate to be the next US Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), President Obama addressed the annual National Prayer Breakfast. Obama recognized the National Prayer Breakfast as an opportunity to set aside labels of party and ideology. He used the opportunity to discuss the importance of religious freedom abroad. Obama said that freedom of religion is necessary for peace and human dignity.

Tibetans know the truth of those words all too well. In Tibet, Buddhism is strictly controlled by the Chinese government. After the destruction of almost every monastery, nunnery, and religious, historic or biographic text in Tibet in the first 25 years of Chinese rule the Chinese government still violently denies Tibetans religious freedom. Tibetan Buddhists are prevented from freely exercising their religious beliefs. Monks and nuns are subjected to Patriotic Education Campaigns, which require monks and nuns to denounce the Dalai Lama or be kicked out of their monasteries or nunneries. By February 1998, 3,993 monks and nuns were kicked out of their monasteries and nunneries. According to official Chinese figures 1,200 monks were expelled from monasteries near Lhasa.

10/09/2013 News

Ancient Tibetan monastery under siege over reincarnation issue; mother of two attempts suicide protest

Lama Dawa Rinpoche (full name: Dawa Rinpoche Khenrap Wangchuk Samten Tenpai Gyaltsen Pel Sangpo) was detained and sentenced to 7 years in prison.

A Tibetan monastery with over 300 years of history has been shut down indefinitely after Chinese authorities attempted to impose its own choice of reincarnation on the monastery in Nagchu (Ch: Naqu) Prefecture in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

Shak Rongpo Gaden Dhargyeling Monastery, located in Shakchu (Ch: Xiaqu) Township in Nagchu County, has been under intense pressure and restriction since 2010 when local authorities arrested and sentenced a senior spiritual teacher, Lama Dawa Rinpoche, to seven years in prison on charges that he contacted His Holiness the Dalai Lama during the search for the ninth reincarnation of Rongpo Choeje, the head lama of the monastery. The previous eighth incarnation of Rongpo Choeje passed away on 14 August 1999. The first Rongpo Choeje founded the monastery under the guidance of the fifth Dalai Lama some 300 years ago.

According to information received by TCHRD, out of 113 big and small monasteries in Nagchu Prefecture, Shak Rongpo Monastery has been blacklisted among the top group of reactionary monasteries, undeserving of any measure of official leniency.

31/08/2013 News

China tightens the screw after shooting Tibetan worshippers in Tawu

Armed police making their way down to beat, teargas and shoot Tibetans celebrating Dalai Lama's birthday. — Armed police making their way down to beat, teargas and shoot Tibetans who had come to celebrate Dalai Lama’s birthday.

China has launched a crackdown on local Tibetans who had organised a religious ceremony to observe the birthday of Tibetan spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama last month in Tawu (Ch: Dawu/Daofu) County in Kardze (Ch: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the Tibetan province of Kham.

On 6 July 2013, China’s People’s Armed Police (PAP) beat and fired teargas and live ammunition on hundreds of Tibetans who had gathered near Machen Pomra Mountain in Tawu to offer the ritual of incense-burning to celebrate the birthday of the Dalai Lama. At least 14 known Tibetans were injured in the firing and others were detained.

Since then, local authorities in Tawu have intensified surveillance and monitoring of local Tibetans and announced strict punitive measures against local officials and cadres for failing to ‘maintain stability’. Local authorities have vowed to crack down on any signs of ‘separatist’ sentiments and activities by implementing five major ‘stability maintenance’ measures in Tawu County, according to a report published in the official Ganzi Daily newspaper. (Also click here for related report in Chinese language)

05/07/2013 News

China implements measures to appoint political monks in guise of spiritual teachers

New measures to control Buddhist monastic teachers was approved at during the second session of the eighth council of Buddhist Association of China held on 25 November 2012. — New measures to control Buddhist monastic teachers were approved during the second session of the eighth council of Buddhist Association of China on 25 November 2012.

In the past weeks, there has been persistent speculation on ‘experimental’ moves by the Chinese authorities to overturn some of its decades-old vilification campaign against the Tibetan spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. A handful of Tibetan monasteries in the Tibetan provinces of Amdo and Kham, located respectively in present-day Qinghai and Sichuan provinces, were given verbal permission to display portraits of the Dalai Lama and worship him as a religious, and not as a political figure. According to these verbal orders, monks and nuns are no longer required to denounce the Dalai Lama, which is an essential component in political education classes in Tibet’s monastic institutions. Major international media outlets heralded this as a change in China’s Tibet policy.

Only a few days later on 28 June 2013, China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), the highest official body that regulates all recognised religions in the People’s Republic of China, denied any reversal of its long-standing policy on the Dalai Lama.

24/04/2013 News / TCHRD Statements

Tibet’s Stolen Spiritual Leader Turns 24: China must end enforced disappearance of Tibet’s Panchen Lama

Tibet's XIth Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima — Tibet’s XIth Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, Tibet’s XI^th Panchen Lama, one of the most important Tibetan spiritual leaders, turns 24 today under house arrest. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was born on 25 April 1989 in Lhari County in Nagchu, Tibet. It is his 18th year in Chinese custody at an undisclosed location after he and his parents disappeared in 1995. He was only six years old when he was disappeared by the Chinese authorities.

For about 18 years, the Chinese authorities have wilfully misled the international community on the actual whereabouts and wellbeing of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family members, almost always sticking to the standard, unverifiable response that the “perfectly ordinary boy” is in “protective custody”, growing up in “excellent state of health” and that his parents “did not want to be disturbed”.

07/06/2009 News

Monk suicides on the rise in Buddhist Tibet

The Tibetan Buddhist worldwide is currently observing this month as the holy Buddhist month of Saka Dawa. 7 June 2009 (a full moon day), Sunday, will be observed as the most important day of the holy month according to the Buddhist belief due to the significance of the day being Buddha Shakyamuni’s birth, enlightenment and parinirvana falling on the same day. While the Tibetan Buddhist – both the civil and monastic community – worldwide spend the day with various religious activities and rituals according to the faith, however, Tibetans inside Chinese administered Tibet face severe religious repression enacted by the State and its agents. Restrictions and prohibitory orders to the government officials and students from visiting temples this month have already been issued. Reinforcement of security forces and intelligence officials have been deployed across Lhasa city to maintain “stability” during the holy month.