students. The institute’s founder, Jigme Phuntsok, was arrested. He died on 7 January 2004.35

Since its irst demolition in 2001, Buddhist Institute attracted thousands of more students throughout , , Hongkong, and Malaysia in the subsequent years and grew to its former size in terms of students’ population. Now, it is once again being subjected to the same demolition. Thousands of monks and nuns are being expelled from the academy and their homes destroyed. This ongoing demolition of the academy in eastern Tibet has been widely covered by the international media and is a cause of serious concern to Tibetans in Tibet and outside.

In December 2002, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche,36 the founder of Kham Nalanda Monastery in eastern Tibet, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on false charges of having been involved in a bombing case. The Chinese authorities de-recognised him as an incarnate and ordered him to become a common monk, and denied conirmation of the two reincarnations that Tenzin Delek Rinpoche had earlier recognized. Because of his work to beneit the people, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche commanded widespread respect and trust among both Tibetans and Chinese in his area. The local authorities saw this as a threat to their legitimacy and power, and had been looking for a way to remove him.That year Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was arrested and put in prison. In July 2015 he died under Chinese policy custody. The Chinese police refused to return his body to his grieving relatives for proper cremation, fearing that a respectful cremation of the body of this dynamic Tibetan spiritual leader would attract thousands of his devoted followers and this might cause social unrest in the locality.

According to the Annual Report 2009 by United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Tulku Phurbu Tsering, a highly respected tulku of Tehor Kardze Monastery in eastern Tibet , “was detained on 19 May 2008 after police detained more than ifty of his students for staging a peaceful protest against requirements that they denounce the Dalai Lama and their teacher.”37

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