Published by World Tibet Network News - Monday - November 27, 1995

The following is a media release on the upcoming demonstration planned in Toronto by the Tibetan community and Tibet supporters.

We will attempt to bring some focus on the missing Panchen Lama who somehow seems to be overlooked in the controversy swirling around China's attempts to pick their own Panchen Lama. In all the recent media coverage on the Panchen Lama the fact that a six-year-old boy is missing and most likely has been whisked away by Chinese officials seems somehow to be forgotten or only mentioned in passing. There also seems to be no movement amongst Tibet support groups to bring pressure on China to prove that the boy and his family are safe and are not being detained against their will.

It is possible that such an effort is already underway and we are not aware of it in which case please ignore this. If not, we would like to suggest that if you have not already had your demonstration, perhaps you could make the focus of your demonstration or letter-writing campaign the young Panchen Lama, Gendun Choekyi Nyima, in addition to protesting the interference by Beijing into the religious matters of the Tibetan people.

By the way, in case you do not already know, the Chinese government has denied they have kidnapped the little boy or that they are detaining him. In fact, they claim not to know of his whereabouts-difficult to believe!. However, the more people and organizations who query Beijing on the whereabouts of the boy and ask them to prove that he is safe and not being held against his will the greater the chance that they will not harm him. Tashi Delek!

Rigzin Dolkar