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Sikyong Penpa Tsering urges global support for Tibetan religious freedom, condemning China's interference in recognizing reincarnated lamas and eroding Tibetan identity.
Calling for global support to protect religious freedom in Tibet, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the political leader of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), said the Chinese government’s interference in recognising reincarnated lamas is aimed at controlling the next Dalai Lama — and, through him, the Tibetan people.
Tsering said this while speaking during the fifth anniversary conference of International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance (IRFBA), also known as The Article 18 Alliance, in Prague. “The Chinese government is interfering in the centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist tradition of recognising reincarnated lamas, especially the 15th Dalai Lama. While they ignore the living 14th Dalai Lama, their main aim is to control the next Dalai Lama so they can control the Tibetan people,” he said, according to a CTA report.
In his July 2 statement, exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama announced that the 600-year-old institution of the Dalai Lama will continue and reiterated that Gaden Phodrang Trust has sole authority to recognise the future reincarnation and no one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter.
The process of recognising the reincarnations of lamas in Tibetan Buddhism is solely and uniquely a Tibetan religious tradition. In contrast, China maintains that the process of selecting his successor must adhere to Chinese law, asserting its control over Tibetan Buddhism and rejecting any succession beyond its authority.
In his address, Sikyong Penpa Tsering also highlighted the Chinese government’s systematic efforts to erase the identity of all minority communities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghur Muslims, and Tibetan Buddhists, who continue to suffer under the PRC’s repressive and assimilative policies. “The Chinese leadership believes that by eliminating minority identities, they can eliminate minority-related issues, beginning with the suppression of languages,” he said.
Sikyong further drew attention to the millions of Tibetan children forcibly enrolled in state-run colonial-style boarding schools, where they are separated from their families, language, and cultural roots, and are taught solely in Mandarin with the primary objective of making loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party.
The Tibetan government-in-exile, based in Dharamshala, has constantly expressed concern over the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged intensified efforts to “erode” Tibet’s identity. Penpa Tsering recently said that Tibet’s language, culture, religion, environment, and way of life are under serious threat.
