(TibetanReview.net, May02’20) – A draft motion was tabled in the Scottish Parliament on Apr 23, seeking information on China’s disappearance 25 years ago of Tibet’s second most prominent religious figure, the 11th Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, and seeking his release. A separate letter asks UK’s Foreign Secretary to raise the issue with Beijing.
The Chinese government abducted him and his family on May 17, 1995, three days after the Dalai Lama declared the then 6-year-old boy as the reincarnation of the late 10th Panchen Lama. China then appointed another boy, named Gyaltsen Norbu, in his place and has been grooming him in Beijing to play his role on its behalf.
The motion was tabled by Ross Greer, Green MSP for West Scotland and co-convener of Scottish Cross-Party Group on Tibet. It calls on “the UK Government to raise the wellbeing of Gedhun and his family through diplomatic means.”
The motion takes note of the fact that the exile Tibetan administration was running an advocacy campaign from Apr 25 to May 17 for the abducted Panchen Lama. It says that in response to repeated queries on him, including by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, China had only made unsubstantiated claim that Gedhun was living a “healthy, normal life.”
Separately, Greer and MSP Linda Fabiani, conveners of the Cross-party Group on Tibet, have written to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, calling on the UK Government to raise the issue of the Panchen Lama with the Chinese Government.