A SENIOR Tibetan official yesterday categorically denied reports that the boy chosen last year by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama had been imprisoned.
'That boy is living with his parents and goes to school like all other Chinese children,' said Mr Raidi, the director of the standing committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region People's Congress.
'He is not guilty of any crime so why should he be in prison?' In January, Amnesty International, listed the boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, and his parents as 'missing', possibly in detention by the Chinese authorities.
Since then the Chinese authorities have refused to say where the boy was other than that he was 'safe and in good health'.
Mr Raidi said the six-year-old boy, who was selected by the Dalai Lama on May 14 last year, was not acceptable as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second most important religious figure in Tibet, because the Dalai Lama had violated Buddhist doctrines in the selection process.
A rival candidate, sanctioned by the central government and the Communist Party, was chosen during a lot-drawing ceremony in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, at the end of November.
Speaking at a press conference organised by the NPC, Mr Raidi again attacked the Dalai Lama for 'using every means possible to disrupt and interfere with the selection process for the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama'.
Mr Raidi also denied a report in the official Tibet Daily newspaper that monasteries in Tibet with 'political problems' were about to be closed down, and nuns and monks were to be sent for re-education.
Mr Raidi claimed he had not heard of such 'false reports'.
No temple or monastery in Tibet had been closed since the Cultural Revolution, Mr Raidi said.
In fact, he said, more and more temples were being reopened.
There were currently more than 1,700 temples and monasteries in Tibet with more than 40,000 lamas, he said.
'Religious activities are not limited, rather they are protected by law.' Mr Raidi's denials of any problems in the Tibetan religious community other than those caused by the Dalai Lama were met with scepticism by Tibet analysts, who said there was strong evidence of intense dissatisfaction among lamas, monks and nuns in Tibet over the way the Panchen Lama issue was handled by the authorities. CHINA has accused the Dalai Lama of colluding with Shoko Asahara, the Japanese Aum Supreme Truth guru who has been accused of masterminding the Tokyo subway gas attack last March.
Xinhua (the New China News Agency) published extracts from an article in the China Tibet magazine aimed at showing that the Tibetan Buddhist leader was the friend or even the master of Asahara.
