Update of May 16, 2025, 05:20 HE
The groups of the Tibetan government in exile and rights have called on China to release the Panchen Lama, the second highest spiritual leader of the largest sect of Tibetan Buddhism, which was kidnapped 30 years ago and which was missing since.
“At just six years old, he was kidnapped by the Chinese authorities – an act that remains one of the most significant examples of the serious human rights violations in China,” Free Free Free Free Asia Lenzin Lekshay, spokesperson for Dharamsala, at Radio Free Asia told Radio.
“We urgently call on the Chinese government to reveal where the Panchen Lama is located and to ensure its well-being. As a spiritual leader and as a human being, he has the fundamental right to live freely and to fulfill his spiritual responsibilities without fear or restriction,” said Lekshay.
On May 17, 1995, just a few days after the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, officially recognized Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama, Beijing removed the 6 -year -old boy with his family and his teacher.
Their fate remained unknown, despite the repeated calls of the world leaders of China to disclose information on the fate of the Panchen Lama who was 36 years old.
“30 years ago, China disappeared a 6 -year -old boy because he represented the freedom of Tibetan Buddhists faced with brutal oppression. Today, we are calling on this horrible injustice to end and China to release Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Lama Panchen, “said Asif Mahmood, Commissioner for the American Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
The international campaign based in Washington for Tibet (ICT) called on world governments and the international community to demand that China releases Panchen Lama and reveals its place and well-being.
“The disappearance of the Panchen Lama and his family is the rule and not the exception in Tibet, where the Chinese government resorts to disappearance, torture, imprisonment … Expulsion of monks and nuns of monasteries and nunneries,” said Tencho Gyatso, President of ICT.
“China's actions to disappear from the Panchen Lama legitimate and installation of a false panchen show that they do not respect religious freedoms or human rights in Tibet,” she told RFA.
Succession of Dalai Lama
The rights defense groups say that the continuous disappearance of Panchen Lama and the installation by the China of another boy, Gyaltsen (in Chinese, Gyaincain) Norbu, in his place, highlights the Beijing plan to control the succession of the Dalai Lama, since the two Lamas historically recognized the successive reincarnations of the other and served as a teacher of the other.
“The Chinese government has kidnapped a 6-year-old child and his family and disappeared for 30 years to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama and therefore of Tibetan Buddhism itself,” said Yalkun Uluyol, a researcher in China Rights Watch, based in New York.
China says that it can name the successor under Chinese law. In 2007, he declared that the Chinese government would begin to supervise the recognition of all reincarnated Tibetan lamas, or “living Buddhas”, including the next incarnation of Dalai Lama, for which China plans to use its own Lama de Panchen, appointed to Beijing.
“While the 14th Dalai Lama present will celebrate its 90th anniversary on July 6, the question of its succession – and the future of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan people – becomes more and more urgent,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
The Dalai Lama said in a new book, that his reincarnation was born in the “free world”, which he described as outside China.
Experts say that Gyaincain Norbu's China's appointment as Panchen Lama highlights Beijing attempts not only to interfere in the selection of the next Dalai Lama, but also to project his soft power through the Buddhist nations in the world and to take control and legitimacy among the Tibetans, both inside Tibet and exile.
“Removables, surveillance, imprisonment and torture are standard tactics in the Chinese game book of religious persecution,” said Maureen Ferguson of Uscirf. She urged the American Congress to prioritize religious freedom and to ban any remunerated lobbying in the United States on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
“The abduction by Beijing of Panchen Lama was an affront to the Tibetan people and their continuation of religious freedom,” said the president of the US Senate foreign relations committee, Senator Jim Risch (R-Aaho) and the classification member Jeanne Shaheen (DN.H.) in a joint declaration.
“We call Beijing to provide credible evidence of the well-being of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and for his immediate release. The United States will continue to firmly support the rights of Tibetans to have their say in their own future, preserve their culture and maintain their religious freedom,” they added.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to the request for comments from the FRG.
Cultural and religious suppression
China annexed Tibet in the early 1950s and has since ruled the territory with an oppressed strong hand while seeking to suppress the expressions of their Buddhist faith and erases Tibetan culture and language.
“At a time when Chinese authorities intensify efforts to destroy Tibetan culture and identity, the absence of the Panchen Lama is deeply done.
As a vocal critic of Chinese government policies in Tibet and their impact on Tibetan culture and language, the 10th Panchen Lama was subjected to a summons in the 1960s and a subsequent prison sentence for more than a decade, and to torture in prison. He died in 1989 in mysterious circumstances.
It was written in 1962, a petition of 70,000 characters describing the destruction of the Tibetan monasteries and the suppression of the Tibetan people during and after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950. The document remained secret until it was obtained by Tibet Scholar Robert Barnett, who revealed that the Chinese chief Mao Zedong had condemned him like a “party party”. “”
“His voice and vision of the 10th Panchen Lama) are deeply missed in today's Tibet,” said Lekshay.
Edited by Mat Pennington.