(TibetanReview.net, May13’25) – The grief-stricken mother of a highly respected Tibetan religious figure in Golog prefecture of Qinghai province who died in Vietnam late March this year, a victim of China’s transnational repression, has breathed her last early this month, said the Central Tibetan Administration on its Tibet.net website May 13 and the Tibetan-language tibettimes.net May 12.
Dhugkar Dolma died on May 6 evening in her residence, located at a corner of her son’s Lung-ngon Monastery in Ga-de County of Golog, aged 85, said the tibettimes.net report.
The report said the mother of Tulku Hungkar Dorje fell ill with grief some three months after her son disappeared. She had retunr4ed from hospital some 10 days before her death, without any improvement in her condition.
She died after a prolonged illness caused and exacerbated by the distress and emotional toll of her son’s suspicious death, said the Tibet.net statement.
The statement said news about her death reached the outside world late due to China’s heightened restrictions on the flow of information from inside Tibet.
Tulku Hungkar Dorje disappeared after Chinese officials interrogated him in Aug 2024 for allegedly failing to provide a sufficiently warm reception to the Chinese government-appointed Panchen Lama Gyaincain Norbu and for his activism in preserving and promoting Tibetan religion, culture, and language through independent schools, which went counter to President Xi Jinping’s Sinicization drive.
Chinese authorities apparently used cyber-surveillance tools to locate and arrest him in Vietnam on Mar 25, 2024. He died without any credible explanation towards the end of the month after being taken away by Chinese and Vietnamese police from his hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City.
Despite pleas for a transparent and independent investigation of his death, and the return of his body to his monastery and family, Chinese and Vietnamese authorities acted with great haste and utmost secrecy under tight security to cremate his body at 1:00 PM on May 20.
A delegation of visiting monks from his monastery was permitted only a 3-4-minute view only of his face in a hospital before the cremation.
Despite numerous international calls, including from the European Parliament most recently, for an independent and transparent investigation, with international oversight, over the sequence of events which led to the respected Tibetan religious leader’s arrest and death, both China and Vietnam have remained right-lipped about the whole episode.