The opinion piece below was sent to dorjeshugden.com for publication. We accept submissions from the public, please send in your articles to ds@dorjeshugden.com.

The Tibetan leadership has persecuted Dorje Shugden practitioners for over 20 years and in that time, their justification has shifted from one reason to another.

In the following articles, Indy Hack, an independent UK-based journalist examines if there is any truth in the Tibetan leadership’s latest excuse for banning the 400-year-old protector practice i.e. that the practice is a political tool of the Chinese government. He reveals how the Tibetan leadership has used various mouthpieces such as Robert Thurman and even the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) to repeat these harmful allegations even as they hide facts and the truth from the public. For more from Indy Hack, visit arebuddhistsracist.com.

Proof of Chinese Involvement?

20th June 2015

For as long as there have been protests against the Dalai Lama’s religious ban towards Shugden Buddhists there have been claims made by the Dalai Lama that the protests are the work of the Chinese government.

Prior to April 2015 various organisations under the control or influence of the Dalai Lama made wild accusation against the International Shugden Community (ISC) protest movement. They claimed that the protests were funded by the Chinese government and that protesters were paid a daily rate for participating in them.

These ridiculous claims were supported by members of the Tibetan government, such as Thupten Wangchen and western academics such as Professor Robert Thurman, described as “the Dalai Lama’s man in America“. They were said to possess irrefutable proof the claims were true.

To date they’ve presented no evidence to back up these allegations which are simply designed to undermine and discredit the protests. They are aware there’s no evidence because it’s a lie, which is why they have now switched to stating that the protesters are “aligned” with the Chinese government.

To support these newer claims of alignment the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), a group funded largely by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) presented an internal Chinese government document to the media on April 7th 2015.

They state it is a new directive from the Chinese government who are seeking to use the controversy to discredit the Dalai Lama. You can read the ICT translation of the document here.

The ICT claim the document proves the protesters are aligned with the Chinese authorities because they both promote freedom of religion for Tibetans. According to this logic it would seem that President Obama is also aligned with the Chinese authorities because he spoke to the Indian government recently, encouraging them to protect people’s religious freedom.

The only difference in this comparison between President Obama, the Chinese authorities, and the protesters is that the last two criticise the Dalai Lama. Therefore the ICT logic must be that if an organisation is critical of the Dalai Lama they must be aligned with the Chinese authorities.

It’s hardly a good standard because all of the media organisations that run critical articles about the Dalai Lama would likewise be proved to be aligned with China. Does this mean that no-one can criticise the Dalai Lama without fear of being accused of supporting the Chinese oppression of Tibetans?

Well, yes. According to the ICT if you criticise the Dalai Lama then you are supporting China.

It’s worth noting that the ICT state in their 2012 Annual Report, “We’ve worked with and been guided by His Holiness the Dalai Lama“, which may explain their unquestioning support of him.

A Closer Examination

Most journalists I know would take one look at the ICT press releases against the protests and assume they’re trustworthy. They wouldn’t give the document a closer examination because the ICT presents itself as an independent non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Every single Tibetan NGO has the Dalai Lama as a patron or is in some way affiliated to him, even those that disagree with his “middle way” policy. The ICT is no different, it presents itself as independent, yet it is strongly influenced by the Dalai Lama and his exile leadership.

What we see with the ICT is another front for the Dalai Lama to promote his view about the protests to the media through a channel people may wrongly assume is not under his influence or control. Bearing this in mind the ICT has a vested interest in trying to discredit the protests against his ban.

In their review of the Chinese document the ICT present several assertions that are the same as the Central Tibetan Authority, assertions which have been disproved by independent academic researchers.

For example they claim, “Westerners from the “New Kadampa Tradition” (“NKT”) now operating as the International Shugden Community – have organized strident demonstrations against the Dalai Lama in global capitals where he travels.“

This claim has been disproved by a UK religious research charity called INFORM, who are part of the London School of Economics. INFORM stated.

“we stress that there is not a direct or official institutional connection [between the International Shugden Community and the New Kadampa Tradition]“.

“Demonstrably, there are also other networks and individuals unconnected with the NKT who participate in the protests.” (Read more here)

The ICT state that the protesters claims of a ban on Dorje Shugden practice are untrue, yet Dr Robert Barnett of Columbia University in New York stated that the ban and discrimination both exist. (Read more here)

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) also claim, “A Tibetan prominent in the Western Shugden movement, Gangchen Lama, urged monks to be ‘patriotic’ and to show loyalty to the PRC, on a visit to Gangchen monastery in Shigatse, the Tibet Autonomous Region.“

This sounds like definitive proof when considered in a western context but when considered in the context of the Tibetan Autonomous Region it’s not so surprising. If you want to be left to get on with your religious practices then showing loyalty to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will help. Above everything else the Chinese authorities are bothered about loyalty to the country, religion is very much secondary to that.

In fact the Dalai Lama’s choice for the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, also advises people in the Tibetan Autonomous Region to show loyalty to the PRC. He is approved by the Chinese authorities to teach Buddhism and also has very close ties to senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members.

The ICT has absolutely no problem with the 17th Karmapa though. They even promoted his recent tour of the US.

In 2011 the Guardian reported the Karmapa had been arrested by the Indian authorities after a raid of his residence found over $700,000 in cash, much of it in Chinese currency. The Indians allege the Karmapa is under the influence of the Chinese authorities so that they can gain control over several strategic monasteries along the Sino-Indian border.

Still to this day the Karmapa is under virtual house arrest when he is in Dharamsala although he is allowed to travel overseas as his recent tour of the US demonstrates.

What’s the difference between the Karmapa and Gangchen Lama you might ask. Other than over half a million dollars of Chinese cash, one speaks out against the Dalai Lama’s ban and one doesn’t. I’ll leave it to readers to surmise which one is most likely to be in the pay of the Chinese authorities.

What the Chinese Actually Say

When you begin to separate out the ICT’s own commentary on the document and examine what it actually says it becomes crystal clear they’re trying to sell the media a pup.

True, the document does state that the controversy is an opportunity for the Chinese to try and weaken the Dalai Lama’s position, but that is fairly normal. Any half decent government advisor is always looking to capitalise on their opponents faults, that’s no surprise.

What is surprising is that the Chinese are seeking to undermine the Dalai Lama by showing Tibetans that they value religious freedom more than he does. The document states:

“The basic principle of our Party’s policy on religion is to respect and protect the public’s freedom of religious belief. Freedom of religious belief is an important policy in Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas, and it is not only an important policy for each individual member of the masses of ordinary believers, but is also an important policy for dealing with the ‘Gyalchen Shugden’ issue.

“With respect to the ‘Gyalchen Shugden’ issue, believing or not-believing is up to each individual member of the masses of believers. For instance, whether the believing community keeps a statue of Buddha Sakyamuni in their homes, or a statue of Avalokitesvara, is the public’s freedom; the Party and government need not interfere, and neither should Party members or officials.

“Our only standard and position, which complements our basic issue, is that they uphold the leadership of the Communist Party, respect socialism with Chinese characteristics, preserve the unity of the Motherland, and respect laws and regulations. With those preconditions in place, the Party’s religious freedom policy must be firmly implemented, respecting, as best as possible, the wishes of the believing masses.”

The policy document is making it clear that the most important issue is respect for the country and the Communist Party, not whether someone is a Shugden Buddhist or not. This also shows that the Chinese authorities are deciding to take a strong stance on religious discrimination and by doing so hope to win the support of the Tibetans.

The ICT state that since this document became policy several Tibetans have been arrested for trying to force people to stop practicing their prayers to Dorje Shugden. They cite this as proof that the document is real and that it is being enforced.

However this doesn’t prove that the protesters are connected, aligned, or in any way affiliated with the Chinese authorities. Instead it only proves that the Chinese government is refusing to allow the Dalai Lama’s discrimination of Shugden Buddhists to go unchallenged in the Tibetan regions they control.

It goes on to state:

“We should not publicize the issue of belief in ‘Gyalchen Shugden,’ not interfere, not politicize, not see belief or nonbelief in black and white terms, and not make belief or nonbelief in ‘Gyalchen Shugden’ as the basis for drawing a clear line with the Dalai Clique.

“Rather, it is those who love the country and love religion, respect regulations and abide by laws, preserve the unity of the Motherland , maintain stability in Tibet, and contribute to Tibet’s development and stability who are good citizens, good members of the public, and good monks/nuns.”

I am at a loss to understand why the ICT believe this document to be some sort of ‘smoking gun’ proof to discredit the protesters. This seems to me like a standard governmental briefing document that explains a policy to win over the local population.

Compared to the UK and US occupying forces in Iraq and Afghanistan this type of policy document is not unusual. It’s just explaining a straightforward “hearts and minds” approach.

The ICT Prove the Protesters are not Connected to China

The ICT are very selective about the parts of the document they want to draw people’s attention to for good reason. If you take the time to read the translation in full it becomes apparent that it expressly forbids anyone in the Chinese government from supporting the protests against the Dalai Lama’s ban.

Specifically it states:

“Thus, first, we must respect the public’s religious freedom and allow the masses to choose for themselves. Secondly, those who, with the confidence of having truth, and wearing the armor of legality, and under the pretext of the ‘Gyalchen Shugden’ issue, instigate deception and cause public gatherings and disturbances, irrespective of whether they represent the believers or non-believers or what banners they carry, should be strictly punished according to law as and when the incidents occur.

“If there is involvement by Party members or officials, they must be strictly dealt with on the basis of disciplinary regulations, so that enemy forces do not get so much as a sesame seed’s chance of an opportunity.”

The Chinese authorities are making it clear that anyone involved in the controversy, “whether they represent the believers or non-believers” will be punished. This also applies to Party members.

The International Campaign for Tibet claim that this document is the ‘smoking gun’ which proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the International Shugden Community protesters are aligned with China, whereas in truth it proves the exact opposite.

This proves that the Chinese Communist Party is taking no stance on being pro or anti Shugden and that they will punish any of their members who do take a stance on it.

It is a ‘smoking gun’ but not in the way the ICT present it to the media. This is a document that proves the Chinese authorities are not in any way involved, aligned, nor connected to the ISC protests because if they were it would give the Dalai Lama, “a sesame seed’s chance of an opportunity” to criticise them about it.

Their opportunity to use this situation against the Dalai Lama rests solely on their approach to allow religious freedom of both believers and non-believers. To side with, or be seen to side with, pro-Shugden Buddhists would destroy this opportunity.

Why then would they risk that by being involved in any way with the ISC protests or in promoting Shugden Buddhism in Tibet in favour of other traditions?

The ICT state the document is real and cite the example of Tibetans convicted for trying to suppress Shugden practice in Tibet as proof it has been enacted. If this is the case then it is unthinkable that the Chinese would throw away their chance to undermine the Dalai Lama by taking sides. Their whole policy to undermine him by using this issue depends entirely on their not taking sides.

Conclusion

The ICT, funded as they are by the US taxpayer, are seeking to promote the propaganda of the Dalai Lama’s government despite claiming to be an independent and trustworthy NGO.

They blatantly misrepresent the facts of this document to the media knowing full well that they will usually believe them without checking.

The claims of the ICT are nothing more than a smear campaign to discourage the media from investigating the issues the protests seek to raise. Why the ICT should be so supportive of religious discrimination and segregation is beyond me.

Surely in modern America it’s time to stop funding organisations that promote discrimination, even when that discrimination is backed by a media celebrity such as the Dalai Lama.

Source: http://www.arebuddhistsracist.com/proof_of_chinese_involvment.html

The Chinese Link

It always surprises me how seriously other journalists take claims that the protests are funded by the Chinese government without even bothering to check if the claims are true. The rumours circulate around every protest media pool and they always seem to originate from the Tibetan government and the Dalai Lama’s representatives, so naturally I’m a little sceptical about them.

It’s claimed that the Chinese government funds the costs for people to travel to the demonstrations and even go as far as to pay people a stipend for each day they attend. I’m sure that the Chinese government are quite happy about people protesting against the Dalai Lama, but try as I might I couldn’t find any evidence to support these claims.

Of all the people who have contacted me about the claims, none have been able to offer a single piece of evidence to back them up. Every request for evidence I have made is always greeted with silence.

Also I couldn’t understand why the Chinese government would bother getting their hands dirty by funding such protests. The main reason I am dubious about these claims (other than the complete absence of evidence) is that the logic doesn’t add up.

How does the Chinese Government undermine the Dalai Lama?

In 2010 Liu Xiabobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Institute whilst he was serving his 4th prison term as a political prisoner in China. As a result China severed all high level contact with Norway.

In 2014 when the Dalai Lama was due to visit Norway to mark the 25th anniversary of his own Nobel Peace Prize the Norwegian Government decided not to meet with him as a “necessary sacrifice” to try and improve its relations with China.

Subsequently the Tibetan Government criticised this decision saying, “It’s unfortunate that the Norwegian leadership did not meet with the Dalai Lama because of the tremendous pressure of the Chinese government.“

In 2009 South Africa refused a visa for the Dalai Lama to attend a conference aimed at using the World Cup to tackle racism. Desmond Tutu who had invited the Dalai Lama to attend the conference said of the decision, “we are shamelessly succumbing to Chinese pressure“. The South African government had been warned by the Chinese embassy that the visit by the Dalai Lama was “inopportune” and would harm their relationship.

Likewise the Dalai Lama was refused a visa to attend Nelson Mandela’s funeral in 2013.

In 2011 Julia Gillard who was then the Australian Prime Minister also refused to meet with the Dalai Lama because of concerns that it would upset delicate trade agreements with China.

Given that the Chinese economy is so tied to that of the rest of the world their government already has effective measures of undermining the Dalai Lama on his various trips through diplomatic channels and trade pressure. So why would they risk exposure to public outcry if they were caught orchestrating or sponsoring public demonstrations against him?

Why do the rumours persist?

Despite no evidence to support them and despite the fact that they are illogical, the rumours persist mainly because of the Tibetan Government.

In their 2014 resolution criminalising the practice of Dorje Shugden they also state that Dorje Shugden practitioners, “are being deceived by the Chinese government through monetary and material incentive and are used as political tools.” It’s a common practice amongst Tibetan officials to repeat this allegation about anyone who contradicts the Dalai Lama.

Thupten Wangchen of the CTA said in a recent interview that he had spoken to Chinese members of the protest group that had confirmed they are paid by the Chinese government. This was the only evidence he offered to support these claims even though they have been made repeatedly for years.

As to why a Chinese sponsored demonstrator would speak to a member of the Tibetan government during the protests and also admit they were paid by the Chinese government was never explained by Thupten Wangchen.

Given that the Chinese are the common enemy of the Tibetan community it seems much more likely that by claiming the Chinese government are behind the protests the CTA hope to galvanise support for its ban of Dorje Shugden and further isolate any Tibetan protesters.

Chinese Outreach Program

In trying to find evidence of any Chinese connections with Dorje Shugden practitioners and protesters I accidentally stumbled across an unusual program of the Tibetan government called the Chinese Outreach Program, which may help to explain the reason for these claims.

Ostensibly the program aims to offer support and make connections with Chinese writers and activists who are promoting political changes in China. The program is funded by the Department of Information and International Relations of the CTA and administered by their Offices of Tibet throughout the world.

Of the records we were able to obtain we discovered that the US Office of Tibet spent $28,835.86 on supporting Chinese activists in the year from 1st oct 2009 to 30th sep 2010. The Office ignored our request to explain or give any further information about what this financial support may have entailed or to whom it was given.

If you consider that there are 10 Offices of Tibet throughout the world, if each one made a similar financial contribution under the Chinese Outreach Program it would mean the Tibetan government was spending over $250,000 a year funding Chinese activists.

If this is the case it would explain why the CTA is so convinced that people protesting against its own policies must be funded by the Chinese government since they spend so much money funding people who speak out against the Chinese government.

Unfortunately for the CTA just because they fund Chinese political activists it doesn’t mean that the Chinese government is funding the protests against the Dalai Lama’s ban – evidence of one’s own misdeeds is not proof of another’s.

Source: http://www.arebuddhistsracist.com/the_chinese_link.html

The opinion piece below was sent to dorjeshugden.com for publication. We accept submissions from the public, please send in your articles to ds@dorjeshugden.com.

It is common knowledge that the only foundation of the so-called “Tibetan cause” is the Dalai Lama, or more accurately, the presence of the Dalai Lama in the struggle. Without this factor, observers say that the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom would fall apart in no time.

Now, concerns loom as UK-based independent journalist, Indy Hack’s investigations seem to suggest the Dalai Lama is suffering from cancer and is facing deteriorating health, a fact the Central Tibetan Administration does not want to acknowledge. In the article below, Indy Hack explores what this means for the Dorje Shugden controversy. For more from Indy Hack, visit arebuddhistsracist.com.

The Dalai Lama’s Cancer

28th June 2017

During his latest visit to the US the Dalai Lama admitted to suffering from prostate cancer. You could be forgiven for having missed this news since he only made the announcements during meetings with exile Tibetans.

On Sunday 18th June the Dalai Lama met with Tibetans in San Diego, California, and said that doctors had diagnosed him as having prostate cancer two years ago in 2015. This was reported in an article on 19th June 2017 on Radio Free Asia’s website, but neither the Dalai Lama’s own website, nor that of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) made any mention of cancer.

The Dalai Lama went into further specifics about the prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment during a meeting with Tibetan exiles in Boston, Massachusetts, one week later on June 25th. This time his own website mentioned the details of cancer, yet the CTA website didn’t.

The Dalai Lama’s official website stated,

His Holiness mentioned that in 2015 his physicians found indications of prostate cancer and decided to give him focused radiation treatment instead of surgery last year.

Both times he went on to claim that he was completely cancer-free and in ‘excellent‘ health, however officials in the Dalai Lama’s own government who spoke on condition of anonymity stated that the cancer has spread into his bones and the prognosis is very bleak.

Inside Information

Following the surprise cancellation of his US tour in late 2015 I was put in touch with a senior member of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) through a mutual acquaintance. My initial take on the Dalai Lama’s hospital visit and tour cancellation was that he was avoiding publicity after he’d been accused of sexism. I was assured by this member of the CTA that my information was incorrect, there was a far more serious reason for the cancellation.

Over the course of several weeks this person revealed to me that the Dalai Lama had been diagnosed with recurrent prostate cancer and the whole administration had been thrown into complete disarray. Soon after the initial shock came the power struggles and jostling for position as people feared this could be the end of the Dalai Lama.

I wanted to reveal this information as soon as possible, however to do so would risk exposing the identity of this new source. As such I waited until it was announced that the Dalai Lama would be travelling to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for treatment. That announcement was made on the Dalai Lama’s official website on 19th January 2016, so I tweeted the news of his cancer on the same day.

What surprised me were the lengths to which the Dalai Lama would go to avoid admitting that this was true.

And So It Begins

In late 2015 the Dalai Lama was visiting the UK when he noticed blood in his urine. Contacting his doctors they insisted he change his travel plans and head directly to the Mayo Clinic for tests as a matter of utmost urgency.

On 21st September 2015 the Dalai Lama left the UK and went straight to the US where he was admitted to hospital. On September 22nd people started to post on social media that the Dalai Lama was in Rochester which was then picked up by several local newspapers.

This meant the Mayo Clinic had to issue a statement, which they did on 23rd September, informing the media that the Dalai Lama was at the clinic for a, “medical evaluation“.

On 25th September the Dalai Lama’s office cancelled his US tour dates for the rest of 2015 and said that, “The doctors have advised His Holiness to rest for the next several weeks“. They also played down the reason for the trip to the Mayo Clinic as being a, “routine check-up.”

Clearly this wasn’t a routine check-up as he had flown from the UK specifically to undergo tests in the Mayo Clinic. If it was a routine check-up it would have taken place two weeks later as he was due to visit the US in mid-October.

Why did the Dalai Lama travel all the way to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, rather than seeking treatment in the UK? The reason for this is stated clearly on the Mayo’s website:

“Mayo Clinic’s campus in Minnesota is the first medical center in the United States approved by the Food and Drug administration to prepare and administer choline C-11 PET scan to help detect recurrent prostate cancer at its earliest stages — before it can be detected by other imaging tests.”

This wasn’t a routine check-up, nor was it the first time the Dalai Lama had suffered prostate cancer. He was first diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent initial treatment for it in 2008. His doctors were now very concerned that it had come back, which is why they urgently needed him to come to the US for “medical evaluation“.

During his screening they discovered that his cancer had come back so he underwent immediate surgery and returned to Dharamsala to rest, which is why he was so frail on his arrival back in India.

To the outside world no-one was allowed to reveal there was any problem with his health. When Associated Press (AP) contacted his secretary at the US Office of Tibet this was their response:

“A secretary to the Dalai Lama, Chime Rigzin, told AP on Thursday that the Dalai Lama had been to the clinic and had had no health complaints. Rigzin told AP test results were fine. He added the spiritual leader had no complaints but he had been advised to take “complete rest” and would be returning to India.

Despite his diagnosis all officials were told to report that the Dalai Lama had been at the Mayo Clinic for a routine annual health check and the doctors had advised him to rest. On 30th September 2015 he addressed an audience of exile Tibetans at the Mayo Civic Center where he lied to them about this diagnosis. He said:

“The last time in India, they told me that my health was good, and here also, they’ve said that my general health was excellent, with no major ailments whatsoever (applause). Now for the last 2 or 3 years I’ve had some issues with my knees. Recently a German doctor, a specialist, said to me, “you’re not 18, you’re 80,” and that things like this are normal (laughs). And I realize the truth in that diagnosis (laughs). So I’m very well, and there’s no need for any of you to worry. However the doctors have told me to rest more.”

More Lies

Following this period of rest the Dalai Lama scheduled a return trip to the US in early 2016, however rather than a teaching tour it was for further treatment at the Mayo Clinic. This time his treatment schedule would consist of a month long bout of radiation therapy.

Details of his trip to the US were kept secret from the public until the day of his travel. The Dalai Lama’s website then issued the following statement:

“His Holiness the Dalai Lama is departing Dharamsala today for the United States where he is scheduled to undergo prostate treatment at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota followed by a period of rest from the end of January 2016 for approximately one month. His regular engagement schedule will resume in March.”

Just prior to his departure from India reporters from the Associated Press (AP) asked the Dalai Lama about his health. They stated:

“He said he had a minor swelling in his right eye. He then removed his glasses and laughed, pointing at his slightly swollen eye.”

This approach is typical of the Dalai Lama’s deflection of questions surrounding his health. Trying not to lie directly he seeks to divert attention away from the obvious towards another possible explanation. On September 30th 2015 he spoke about problems with his knees, and here he was now speaking about a problem with his eye.

AP asked him directly about his prostate treatment to which he replied that he had no “specific health complaints.”

At this point he knew he’d been diagnosed with recurring prostate cancer and was flying to the US for radiation treatment for a month to target the cancer. Yet here he was lying blatantly to the Associated Press.

This lie was widely reported by AP throughout the world as if it were the truth. Media in the US, UK and most other countries carried the Dalai Lama’s words that he had no “specific health complaints”. His deflection had now become direct lies and that worried his media team and the Mayo Clinic. They had to maintain this lie which meant that now no-one could reveal the situation the Dalai Lama faced.

Whilst this approach was usual for the CTA and the Dalai Lama’s close staff it was deemed too risky for the Mayo Clinic. After his arrival at the clinic they managed to get the Dalai Lama to agree to a further statement which the Mayo Clinic issued through the Tibetan news website Phayul.com. Published on 22nd January 2016 it stated:

“He is being treated for a prostate condition that is common for men of his age,”

and

“His physicians report no major concerns, and anticipate he will respond well to treatment and make a full recovery,”

You’ll note that both sentences weren’t quoted in full, they continue beyond the comma at the end of each quote. The reason was because the Mayo Clinic wanted to divulge more information than the Dalai Lama’s people were happy with. This is why they only agreed to a statement through Phayul.com because they knew that they would be able to control the exact details that were released to the public.

Losar Message

Less than two weeks after his admission to the Mayo Clinic the Dalai Lama issued a video message on 4th February 2016 to Tibetans celebrating Losar (Tibetan New Year). Although spoken in Tibetan it was subtitled in English and contained some important pieces of information.

Firstly the Dalai Lama revealed that he was receiving “precautionary prostate treatment“:

The only precautionary prostate treatment is when doctors try to stop the spread of fast growing prostate cancer to other parts of the body. This was confirmed by another comment he made later on in the video:

The Mayo Clinic’s own website describes just one treatment for prostate issues that fits this description. It’s external beam radiation therapy and is only used for treating cancer. Their website describes the treatment in almost the exact same words the Dalai Lama uses,

The actual radiation treatment only takes a few minutes.

Unknowingly the Dalai Lama had just announced to the world that he was being treated for prostate cancer, yet his staff still refused to admit this was true.

The Accidental Truth

Towards the end of his month long radiotherapy the Dalai Lama was coming under increasing pressure to reveal further details about his health. The combination of my announcement that he was suffering from prostate cancer along with the details contained in his Losar broadcast meant that the press were becoming increasingly impatient. They were asking directly whether he had cancer or not, to which the reply was always no.

On Sunday 21st February the Dalai Lama sought to silence questions around his health by staging a public teaching for Tibetans at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Around 3,000 people attended and the talk was mostly in Tibetan.

The Dalai Lama was unable to sit cross-legged during the teaching which was the first time he’d been unable to do so in public. What was more noticeable was that during the teaching he paused, reached into his bag and brought out a bottle of prescription medication. He proceeded to take this medication, which I’m informed was Oxycodone, in front of the crowd.

Oxycodone is a powerful opioid painkiller that is often used for the treatment of pain in cancer patients.

The fact that the Dalai Lama had to take opioid painkillers during his talk and that he couldn’t sit cross-legged both indicated that his health wasn’t as good he claimed. AP released their initial photograph of the event with the following caption:

The Dalai Lama addresses an audience at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Sunday. He assured his followers that he was in good health despite receiving treatment for prostate cancer.

Zoomed in:

As soon as the Dalai Lama’s staff saw this they hit the roof. They called AP and several legal threats were made to force them into re-captioning the photograph. The second edition of the image had the entire second sentence replaced with:

The Dalai Lama arrived last month at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He told the crowd he’d been receiving treatment for prostate problems.

The only media outlet to keep the initial version of the image is the Tampa Bay Times, it’s still live on their website and you can see the article and caption here.

However KWWL also received the 1st edition of the image and tweeted the following:

It was so obvious to all of the media that the Dalai Lama was receiving cancer treatment that none of them questioned the AP image and caption. They already thought it was in the mainstream news. Despite this the Dalai Lama continued to try and hide his illness from the public.

More and More Lies

When he returned to India the lies continued, although everyone in his inner circle knew the full extent of his cancer prognosis. The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) announced his return on 13th March 2016 with the bold headline, “His Holiness the Dalai Lama Returns in Excellent Health“.

However the truth was that the Dalai Lama’s health was far from ‘excellent‘. His body was struggling to recover from the radiation therapy he’d received and his immune system was being subdued by the strong Oxycodone painkillers he was still taking. Just two weeks after his return to India he was forced to cancel a planned trip to the UK.

On 28th March the Tibetan Community in the UK posted this update on their Facebook page:

In the space of two weeks the Dalai Lama’s health is claimed to have gone from ‘excellent‘ to being so bad he had to cancel more public engagements. Yet he still refused to publicly admit there was a problem. To counteract the continued media speculation over his health the Dalai Lama scheduled a national television appearance on India’s NDTV.

On 7th April 2016 the Dalai Lama’s NDTV special was broadcast and in it he once again demonstrated that he would simply lie in the face of direct questioning.

Sonia Singh asked him, “Your health Your Holiness, because recently you were at the Mayo Clinic, but you are looking much, much younger and fit as all these people here, so how is your health keeping?“

To which the Dalai Lama replied without any hesitation, “Very good, basically excellent.“

You can read the full transcript here.

This was 10 days after he’d cancelled a visit to the UK because of bad health, yet now his health was once again ‘excellent‘. In just over 3 weeks the Dalai Lama’s health had been excellent, very bad, then excellent again.

The answer to whether he was lying or not came a few days later when the Tibetan Community in the UK issued a plea for people to pray for the Dalai Lama’s health. What’s more telling is that this plea was actually from the Dalai Lama’s official UK representative at the Office of Tibet:

Tibetan communities around the world were being asked to pray for the Dalai Lama’s long life because he wasn’t well. This was one week after he’d been on NDTV.

Later in April his official representative for North America, Kaydor Aukatsang gave an interview to Public Radio International (PRI) entitled, “What will happen after the Dalai Lama dies?”

It was unheard of in Tibetan circles to begin talking about the death of the Dalai Lama. Despite claiming publicly to be in excellent health there were factions within his government and exile leadership that were getting very scared about his impending death.

In retaliation for this departure from protocol Kaydor Aukatsang was removed from his post later in 2016 and instructed to return to Dharamsala. In October that year he was then appointed as Chief Resilience Officer for the CTA, a very public and humiliating demotion.

Knowing that the window for negotiations with China was quickly closing CTA officials were breaking ranks and began to urge the Chinese to open dialogues with them. This was happening very publicly as well as behind the scenes. It was the biggest sign that the Dalai Lama was losing control over his subordinates.

A few weeks later in June 2016 the Dalai Lama was back in the US and reaffirming his good health despite all the talk of his mortality. Covering one of his events USA Today stated:

“The Dalai Lama, noting his own exceptional bill of health from his doctor, said a happy body comes from a happy mind.”

This trend continued throughout 2016 as the Dalai Lama lost control over more members of the exile leadership. The rumblings were that the Dalai Lama’s future was measured in terms of months rather than years, meanwhile at every possible media outing the Dalai Lama insisted he was in excellent health.

And Now the Truth

The roller-coaster of the Dalai Lama’s health claims and cancelled public appearances continued well into 2017.

In early February the Dalai Lama once again cancelled plans to travel to the US, citing medical advice and the need to rest. He had been scheduled to speak at the 22nd Annual Festival of Faiths in Louisville on April 23rd & 24th.

The most revealing insight into the Dalai Lama’s health though is that everywhere he goes his opioid painkillers go with him. On April 8th 2017 he was teaching in Tawang, India and throughout the entire teaching his little bottle of pills sat next to him on the teaching throne.

Although he didn’t have to take any during the teaching you can clearly see him packing away the same type of pharmacy pill container as he was seen using in Minneapolis on 30th September 2015. You can watch for yourself here – it’s at 2hrs 33mins into the video.

If the information from a senior member of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) that I’ve received is true then these are also Oxycodone painkillers. For someone with recurring prostate cancer to be continually prescribed opioid painkillers it means just one thing – the cancer has spread. The Mayo Clinic state, “Opioids also can be the most effective treatment for severe ongoing pain, such as pain caused by cancer.“

In addition to the presence of prescription painkillers the Dalai Lama also requires the help of people to walk as was shown by his walks to and from the teaching throne in Tawang.

Not only is the Dalai Lama very unsteady on his feet and slow moving, you can see from the faces of those around him that there is serious concern over his health and well-being.

Two days after leaving Tawang, India, on 13th April 2017 the Dalai Lama cancelled his planned public appearances until the end of May without giving any reason. Questions regarding his health inevitably arose once more in the media to which the response was a continuation of the lie that he was in perfect health.

First Trip to US in 2017

In June this year the Dalai Lama managed his first trip to the US, although it was still questionable whether he would be able to make it. His health was such an issue that his plane was met by a medical team when it landed at Rochester International Airport.

One of the Dalai Lama’s main concerns on arrival was his ability to walk into the Mayo Clinic where there would be a crowd of Tibetans ready to greet him. The physicians were there in part to administer powerful pain medication so that he would be able to walk into the clinic and give the appearance that he was healthy and well.

Once again this June trip to the Mayo Clinic was claimed to be a routine annual check-up, just like the routine annual check-up in September 2015, and the routine annual check-up in January 2016. There’s nothing routine about having a medical team meet your plane as soon as you land, especially when the airport you’re landing at is less than 10 miles away from the hospital you have an appointment with.

Despite all of the denials and assertions the Dalai Lama has made since September 2015 he was still beset with questions about his health and whether he was suffering from cancer. So on 18th June when he addressed Tibetans in San Diego he finally admitted to having cancer, although he claimed he was now cancer-free. Radio Free Asia reported:

“Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama announced on Sunday that he is in excellent health following assurances by doctors that he is cancer-free during an annual medical check-up last month in Minnesota.

Addressing hundreds of Tibetans who had gathered in San Diego, California, to hear him speak, the exiled spiritual leader said that doctors in Rochester, Minnesota, had found nothing left of a “small sign of cancer” in his prostate gland they had identified and treated two years before.”

This statement is ground breaking because in the Dalai Lama’s own words he is admitting that he has lied and told his staff to lie repeatedly to the media for almost two years. He admits that in September 2015 the Mayo Clinic told him that he had prostate cancer, yet he told Tibetans in Minnesota on 30th September 2015,

They’ve said that my general health was excellent, with no major ailments whatsoever.

Despite knowing he had prostate cancer he led the audience to believe he had a problem with his knees and the doctors had told him to rest. On his return to Dharamsala he told his staff to say that he was “in excellent health“.

His admission of lying continued the following week as stated on his official website:

“His Holiness mentioned that in 2015 his physicians found indications of prostate cancer and decided to give him focused radiation treatment instead of surgery last year. This year his recent check-up at the Mayo Clinic has revealed all traces have gone.”

Once again he admits that he was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, but this time he also adds that he received focussed radiation treatment in 2016. The Dalai Lama is therefore admitting that he lied to the Associated Press when he was leaving for the radiation treatment. He had stated very clearly to them that he had no “specific health complaints“.

He admits now that he knew he had cancer at those times he said he was healthy.

Once a Liar, Always a Liar

The problem for the Dalai Lama now is how can we believe anything he says? His credibility is gone. To avoid a question or to deflect attention is one thing. To blatantly tell a bold faced lie whilst staring directly at the camera or reporter is a whole different level of deception.

If the Dalai Lama didn’t want to reveal details of his cancer there are ways and means to handle the media, and he knows them.

He’s very media savvy and has a well trained team of PR and media staff around him. If you don’t want to answer questions about specific areas you prepare an answer that you give in response to every question on the topic that neither denies it nor admits it.

The Dalai Lama didn’t do that, he chose instead to lie over and over again. Then when the Associated Press printed the caption to his photo saying he had been receiving treatment for prostate cancer the Dalai Lama not only lied, he threatened to sue.

Now the Dalai Lama is saying he’s completely cancer-free and his health is excellent. The question is why should anyone believe him?

The fact that he’s admitted to lying before is just one very significant part of the weight of evidence against him. Add to that the fact that he’s been taking Oxycodone painkillers, usually prescribed for cancer pain, continually since 2015 and it doesn’t look good.

Then consider that prior to receiving his bill of excellent health in June 2016 he cancelled a US trip in February, then cancelled all his public engagements in May without specifying why. Clearly his health is progressively deteriorating, it’s not getting better.

According to a Senior Member of the CTA

In 2008 the Dalai Lama was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent surgery. In the years following he seemed to have made a full recovery. Then in September 2015 he passed blood in his urine and went to the Mayo clinic in the US for testing.

The Mayo Clinic at that time was the only clinic in the US licensed to use the choline C-11 PET scan test to help detect recurrent prostate cancer at its earliest stages. That’s why the Dalai Lama went there, because the fear was that his prostate cancer had come back.

The Mayo Clinic found it had come back and was now in the advanced stages having spread from his prostate into other areas of his body. They told him to cancel the rest of his public engagements, performed surgery to remove some of the tumours and prescribed further treatments and opioid painkillers.

Following the Dalai Lama’s return to India he underwent assessment of his response to the treatments he’d been prescribed and it was decided to treat him with radiotherapy to slow the spread of the cancer. In January 2016 he went back to the Mayo Clinic for a month of external beam radiation therapy which slowed the progression of the cancer but didn’t stop it completely.

The Dalai Lama’s final diagnosis is that he has stage 4 prostate cancer with no chance of a cure. The best the doctors can hope for is to slow the progression of the cancer and manage the pain.

The Dalai Lama was prescribed opioid painkillers and bisphosphonates, drugs which help to slow down the damage caused to bones by cancer.

It’s impossible in these circumstances for the Dalai Lama to be told he is “cancer-free“, it’s also impossible to consider anyone with this condition to be in “excellent health“. Whilst his prognosis is ultimately terminal it may take several years for him to finally succumb, although survival rates beyond 5 years for patients with this condition are pretty low.

What this Means for the Shugden Issue

Although the International Shugden Community has stopped its demonstrations against the Dalai Lama the issue of segregation within the Tibetan exile community hasn’t gone away. The Dalai Lama’s ban and subsequent persecution of Shugden Buddhists continues unabated to this day, so the issue is still very much alive.

During the Dalai Lama’s many interviews on the subject he always maintained that there was no ban, he had just given advice. His supporters said that claims of a ban or persecution were ‘baseless’ and that the Dalai Lama always told the truth.

During an event in Hamburg on 25th August 2014 when a member of the audience accused the Dalai Lama of lying he rebutted them by saying that he never lied:

I am Buddhist monk now 80 year, almost 80 year old, even political stuff we never tell lie.

During an interview for NDTV in Oslo he said, “They blame on me, I banned. I never sort of used, I never sort of make a decision banning, banning.“, adding, “I think you should investigate who telling lie.“

The Dalai Lama’s stock response is that he has never lied in his whole life, therefore there is no ban, and the media in the most part believed him. According to Tibetan Buddhism there are 5 root vows for a monk, one of which is not lying, which is described as:

“In general, lying refers to any verbal or non-verbal expression with the intention of deceiving others. So it also refers to making factual statements with the intention to deceive others.”

If the Dalai Lama was caught lying he would have broken his root ordination vows and therefore, according to Tibetan Buddhism, he would no longer be a monk. The logic was simple – it was impossible for the Dalai Lama to lie.

His supporters went one step further by calling into question the ordination vows of the monks and nuns that were protesting him. They claimed that their ordination vows weren’t authentic, therefore they were ‘fake monks‘ dressing up and defaming the Dalai Lama.

Who was the public meant to believe – the very icon of a Buddhist monk or these angry looking, shouty, ‘fake monks?

Now though the Dalai Lama has admitted that he lied about his cancer.

In reality he’s still lying about being cancer-free, but even if we leave that to one side for the moment, there’s an irrefutable truth here – the Dalai Lama lies.

He lied consistently for almost two years about his cancer, so is it conceivable that he lied about the ban?

Is it possible that the Dalai Lama looked cameras and reporters straight in the eye and lied about banning the Dorje Shugden practice, then laughed?

He did exactly that on January 19th 2016 when he lied about his health then pointed to his swollen eye and laughed. Of course he had no specific health issues, how silly of the AP reporters to have asked.

Of course there is no ban on Dorje Shugden practice within the Tibetan exile community, how silly of the media to ask.

I know for a fact that there is a ban on the Dorje Shugden practice and that it was issued by the Dalai Lama. Just as I knew for a fact that he had prostate cancer when he lied about it to the Associated Press on January 19th 2016. Just as I know for a fact that the Dalai Lama is dying from cancer.

I also know for a fact the Dalai Lama broke his ordination vows many, many years ago when he fathered a child. I know all these things as facts because I’ve seen the proof.

His ever weakening grasp on life and power is creating a vacuum within the Tibetan exile community that his competitors are beginning to exploit. His Prime Minister is now referring to himself as President, he controls the Department of Information and International Relations (since 3rd June 2016), and has already changed the seating arrangements for future official engagements to put himself in the top position.

It’s as plain as day, they’re not preparing for the Dalai Lama to be around for very much longer.

Source: http://www.arebuddhistsracist.com/dalai_lama_cancer.html
 

The opinion piece below was sent to dorjeshugden.com for publication. We accept submissions from the public, please send in your articles to ds@dorjeshugden.com.

 
The following articles by UK-based independent journalist, Indy Hack are important to read. It reveals the extent to which the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) is prepared to go, to trick the unwary public into supporting its illegal ban on the practice of Dorje Shugden. The Dalai Lama and CTA have never had any legitimate reason to deny Shugden Buddhists their right to religious freedom. Instead they rely on smear campaign experts such as East German-trained Michael Jäckel who goes by his monk name Tenzin Peljor to do the dirty work.

As Indy Hack uncovered, Peljor, together with his cohorts like Robert Thurman, Joanne Clark and Carol McQuire are well-funded and have secretly started a number of websites and are also behind a number of social media campaigns that spread the CTA’s propaganda on the Dorje Shugden issue. Behind the façade of an ordained monk, Indy Hack exposes Peljor’s malevolent activities that have directly harmed the Gelug lineage and trust in Tibetan Buddhism. For more from Indy Hack, visit arebuddhistsracist.com.

Tenzin Peljor – Disgruntled Monk or CTA Puppet?

In researching the issues around the Dalai Lama controversy I was surprised to see the same group of names kept cropping up. There appeared to be a small Dalai Lama fan club that was aggressively promoting its “anti-protest” stance and within that group there was one name that seemed to dominate all their activities – Tenzin Peljor.

I stumbled across Mr Peljor early in my research, or to be more precise I had been directed to several of his websites for “authoritative and independent information” on the subject. It would appear that he has become an “unbiased expert” according to his friends in the group, but what they don’t mention are his close ties to the Dalai Lama and the exile leadership.

They also fail to mention that he has been aggressively campaigning against the protests for over 8 years and that he runs numerous websites registered under different aliases and tries to influence online discussions using several false identities. On further inspection Mr Peljor’s activities are anything but “unbiased and independent“, and more closely resemble those of an activist promoting a specific and clearly defined agenda.

His “independent websites” are listed as resources for journalists by the Tibetan exile leadership, he is promoted to journalists by Tibetan NGOs, he is the media spokesperson for the German Buddhist organisation DBO, and he targets any journalist and publication that portrays the protests in a positive light. For a monk whose main activities are teaching at a Buddhist centre in Berlin he is remarkably active and engaged in this controversy, almost as if it was his full-time job.

As with all the sources I come across in my research I did some background checks to see if he was as independent as he claims and to what degree his presentation of information could be influenced by those it benefits. Scratching the surface of his ‘independent monk’ facade revealed quite a bit more than I had initially suspected.

An ex-NKT Member

Tenzin Peljor is often very up front about his prior involvement with the NKT, after all he uses this as a basis for his credibility when it comes to the protests. He joined the NKT in 1995/96 according to his biography, becoming ordained in 1998 and later disrobing and leaving the group in 2000.

Both Tenzin and the teacher he had in the NKT decided to leave at the same time, after which he continued to be her student. He took ordination again in 2002 in Nepal, but disrobed after only 2 months and began studying with a new teacher from the Rime tradition.

In March 2006 after 4 years in Rime he then took ordination from the Dalai Lama in India, who gave him the name Tenzin Peljor.

It was soon after his ordination, that Mr Peljor began to take an interest in countering the protests. His approach followed much the same modus operandi as the Tibetan government, namely to try and undermine the credibility of the protests by attacking the NKT.

It’s worth noting at this point that prior to the protests the Dalai Lama had no problem with Geshe Kelsang Gyatso or the NKT. He had written the foreword to Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s book, “Buddhism in the Tibetan Tradition“, and a note of praise in another of his books, “Meaningful to Behold“. It was only after the protests began that the Tibetan exile leadership started to attack Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and smear the NKT, attempting to label it as a cult.

Following his ordination by the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Peljor remained in India and began to assist the Tibetan government (CTA) with their disinformation campaign. He began by editing pages on Wikipedia, rapidly becoming the main editor for the page about the NKT.

His attempts to redefine the NKT on Wikipedia however seem to have been so clumsy that it aroused the suspicion of other editors. In describing Tenzin’s approach one of the Wikipedia editors stated:

“I’m very concerned that the opinions and viewpoints of a relatively small number of individuals is drawn upon as the source material for a large portion of the article, which is representative of the point of view of a single editor who, in his determination to ensure that the article fully describes his own perspective, has dominated the editing process.” (ClockworkSoul, 23rd October 2006)

The Birth of the Survivors

As Tenzin’s campaign to discredit the NKT on Wikipedia was starting to lose ground he then switched tack and focussed his attention towards online Buddhist chat groups, in particular he became very active on a group called e-Sangha. It was on this group that he struck up a friendship with David Cutshaw, a disillusioned ex-NKT member and encouraged him to start a new discussion group.

The group that Tenzin wanted Mr Cutshaw to set up was to be focussed only on the negative aspects of the NKT, it was to be named the “NKT Survivors” group and any pro-NKT messages were to be strictly forbidden. The idea was that the group would encourage people to leave the NKT and only post their negative experiences and opinions of them. Their rules state:

“No NKT members/followers/students are allowed.
If you are happy with the NKT, and have no desire to leave, this group is not for you. If you join anyway trying to post and try to get Yahoo to delete this group, we can only assume you are a troll trying to cause disharmony. Such people will be banned and removed at once from the group.”

Tenzin offered to support David in the creation of the group, but wanted to avoid being directly linked to it as its creator. In this way Tenzin had found the perfect surrogate to continue his online activities against the NKT.

The group was created on May 22nd 2007 and Tenzin was the first person other than David to post on it. He assisted with moderating the group, approving new members, editing its settings, and profile.

At the time of the groups creation Tenzin was still residing within the Tibetan exile community in India, however a few weeks later he was promoted to the position of Resident Monk at Bodhicharya Centre in Berlin. From his new base in Berlin he continued to be central to its development, shaping the “survivors” group and focussing its narrative portraying the NKT as a cult.

After a few months the group appeared to be achieving the goal Tenzin had failed to accomplish the previous year with Wikipedia.

On 31st Dec 2007 he posted to the group stating,

“At the New Years Day I will move to Italy, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, and pick up a qualified study there for the next 6 years.”

adding,

“I will leave the forum at the New Years Day…If there is anybody who feel he can support David’s moderator activities, please let him know privately.”

Instituto Lama Tzong Khapa is a centre of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) a Tibetan group that follows the Dalai Lama. Clearly the FPMT centre approved of Tenzin’s activities because within 2 months of his arrival there he resumed his activities on the “survivors” group.

Weaving Websites and Alliances

In April 2008 another series of protests began as the Dalai Lama visited the US. In response to these Tenzin created two websites registered under an alias which according to him offered, “fair, neutral, and balanced information regarding NKT and Buddhist cults in general.“

The websites were registered under the false name of Losang Tashi, to an address in Gotha, the town in East Germany where Tenzin was born. In a post on May 21st 2008 to the “survivors” group he said, “maybe we use the power of the many people here and the motivation to protect others (giving fearlessness) by setting up 1-2 websites.“

Rather than offering fair or neutral information both websites were a continuation of his online campaign to undermine the protests by attempting to discredit the NKT. Had his intention been wholesome you would need to ask why a Buddhist monk with vows against lying was using a false name when registering websites?

Then in July 2008 Jamyang Khedrup posted a comment promoting one of Tenzin’s websites under a New York Times article about the protests. What I found interesting was that as I dug deeper into Tenzin’s background I found the same people who have been involved with his campaigning for a long time.

By this point in my research I had already encountered Jamyang Khedrup whilst investigating his involvement with the LamaGate hacking scandal, but I had no idea his involvement with Tenzin stretched as far back as 2008.

The reason I didn’t know Khedrup’s involvement went so far back is because he was posting to the ‘survivors‘ group using a false identity. For 6 months in 2008 Khedrup used the name Lobsang Jangchub in numerous posts to the group. Many people responded to his comments addressing him by the name Lobsang. At no time did he ever try to correct them or explain that wasn’t his name.

The fact that both Tenzin and Khedrup were using false identities whilst posting comments to the ‘survivors‘ group raises significant questions about the accuracy of other users identities and claims.

Significant discrepancies have already been uncovered with Khedrup’s accounts of his involvement with LamaGate, and here is yet another occasion where his credibility is called into question.

The Hidden Hand

Seeking to expand his sphere of influence beyond his own websites and the “survivors” group Tenzin began to strike up a relationship with Dialogue Ireland, a website which focuses on religious movements. Prior to Tenzin’s involvement his friend, Joanne Clark had also been in touch with them to offer her services as a self-proclaimed “expert” on Tibetan Buddhism.

Tenzin and Joanne’s approach in the Dialogue Ireland forums seemed to follow a pattern of promoting both Tenzin’s websites and the “survivors” group. In his attempt to form a stronger bond with Dialogue Ireland, Tenzin wrote to them explaining his position:

“I am much interested into the dynamics of Nazi, Stasi, dictatorship, totalitarian systems, and I am an admirer of Jay Lifton and Margaret Thaler Singer. I run also a website about the dynamics of Buddhist cults in German language. So we share quite a lot.”

Yet when they tried to ask him questions about his background he became very defensive, refusing to answer them. Tenzin said,

“I don’t see any use to answer. My experience recently at DI [Dialogue Ireland] was that whatever I say will be misunderstood or misinterpreted and finally twisted.”

adding

“Also I am not interested in any online discussion about me. East German biographies can be complex.”

A common theme in Tenzin’s response to critics is that they are “twisting” the facts, especially when someone is trying to pin him down on a specific point. It’s interesting that Tenzin used to be in the National People’s Army (NPA) in East Germany, which was strongly influenced by the Soviet Armed Forces, working as a radio operator.

His comments about the protests often accuse them of using ‘agitprop’, which is a Soviet style of propaganda, a methodology he would have been all too familiar with from his previous training. Unfortunately he didn’t expand on his “complex” biography, so we don’t know what type of activities he was employed to perform by the NPA, or what areas his training encompassed.

In 2013 Dialogue Ireland started to use Chris Chandler as their expert on Tibetan Buddhism and approached the issue as a problem with Lamaism, rather than just one or two specific traditions. Chris, who had been involved with Tibetan Buddhism for 30 years, raised the issue that Lamaism is a form of Tantric Hinduism. So it was not a question of focussing on the NKT as a cultish form of Buddhism, but was a case of finding the exact same tendencies and attitudes in all forms of Tibetan Buddhism, including those following the Dalai Lama.

Their new outlook limited the degree to which Tenzin could manipulate their website to promote his own agenda and when they began to look into Ringu Tulku Rinpoche, one of Tenzin’s teachers, he disengaged from them completely. (You can read Dialogue Ireland’s article about Tenzin Peljor in full here)

By this point Joanne had already left the Dialogue Ireland site, but when she heard that Chris was their new expert she returned with a vengence. As one person said, “She was like someone high on drink, totally under the influence.“

Dialogue Ireland stated:

“However since Chris has been the catalyst for our understanding of Lamaism as the cultist form of Buddhism Joanne has been like a Banshee on our site morning, noon and night. She disagrees with Chris’s analysis but can’t just get up and go. She is now camping on the site.”

A Sudden Increase

Following his failed attempt at using Dialogue Ireland to undermine the NKT, Tenzin Peljor spent the following years expanding the number of his own websites that he could control and direct, rather than having to rely upon others. During this period his group of websites grew from two to eight, and everything was proceeding as normal for him until 2014.

Prior to 2014 the protests generally garnered a relatively small degree of media coverage. Whilst they were mentioned on several newscasts in the mainstream media it was often along the lines of the Tibetan government’s media briefing notes, so the issues behind the protests were rarely covered.

That all changed in Oslo when the Dalai Lama returned to celebrate his Nobel Peace Prize and the media took a greater interest in the protests. This attention seemed to gradually build from one protest to another which prompted a corresponding increase in activity from Tenzin Peljor and his compatriots.

In the 8 months prior to May 2014 there were on average 16 messages a month posted on the “survivors” discussion board, however in May this figure jumped up to 144 messages. The vast majority of them were posted over the days when the protests were taking place in Oslo.

At the same time the “survivors” were asking what they could do to counter the protests the exile leadership were asking the exact same question, and before long the two groups were working hand in hand. The “NKT Survivors” became the “NKT Survivor Activists“, and at the request of people associated with the exile leadership they began a new phase in their campaign to try and discredit the protesters.

One of their first actions involved the creation of a declaration against the protests by ex-members of the NKT. Originally this was presented as coming from Carol McQuire and Tenzin as a spontaneous idea of their own.

On 5th November however Carol admitted that it wasn’t their idea saying,

“we were asked to do the declaration, it didn’t come from us, but we thought it was a great idea and agreed to do this as it would help the situation.”

adding,

“Once we were asked to join in, we haven’t looked back – it’s been so inspiring working with a load of amazing people”

There was a slight problem with the first version of the declaration though, it included the following text, “We acknowledge there may be some problems within the Tibetan community that need to be addressed“. This had to be removed from subsequent versions of the declaration before the exile leadership would allow it to be put on the CTA’s official website.

In explaining this on his own website Tenzin let slip, “One of the initiators of the declaration wished for a change“, then he presented both the old version and the changed version.

The declaration was then added to the Tibetan government’s official website (Tibet.net) at the very top of the page dedicated to the Dorje Shugden controversy. The significance of its placement should not be underestimated. It appears before any statements from the CTA and the Dalai Lama, which is somewhat unusual for a declaration signed by only 24 ex-NKT members who are supposedly unconnected to the exile leadership.

A New Website

Despite all the best efforts of Tenzin and the CTA the media was undeterred. They continued to take an interest in the protests and the Dalai Lama found himself facing questions about them during every press conference. The coverage in Hamburg seemed pivotal in that it was both widespread and also became the top news story on Google about the Dalai Lama.

Following Hamburg a new website was created specifically for the media to counteract the protests. It was a website that was designed to be both anonymous, yet have the support of Tibet House in the US. No name was associated with it, no contact details, and it was registered through a domain proxy service, designed to keep the registrant’s details hidden.

At the bottom of the website the disclaimer stated:

“Official Tibet Houses are cultural centers of HH the Dalai Lama, non-profit organizations devoted to the preservation of Tibetan culture. This site appears with their approval since, while not responsible for producing the site or its content, the misrepresentations of Tibetan culture generated by this controversy distort and negatively affect the public perception of Tibetan culture.”

It was all very mysterious and Tenzin Peljor made no mention of the website until someone posted a comment on his website drawing his attention to it. He pretended to know nothing about the website until this comment on October 19th, however he had set one of his own websites to redirect to this new website two days previously, on October 17th.

The mystery deepened when I was discussing some of the controversy with Professor Robert Thurman on the fateful night of the LamaGate incident. It seemed that Professor Thurman was confused about who I am and was convinced that I had suggested to him that he should create the website.

On 30th October Prof. Thurman stated to me that, “we prepared shugdeninfo.com for you @IndyHack“, adding, “We produced this site on your suggestion @IndyHack“

I was a little baffled to say the least. Prof. Thurman was saying quite clearly that he was involved with the creation of the new website (shugdeninfo.com) and yet Tenzin Peljor had redirected his own domain name (shugden.info) to Thurman’s new site. It was too much of a coincidence for me to drop and I was encouraged that there was now a direct link between Thurman and Peljor, albeit a slightly difficult one to prove categorically.

Fortunately Tenzin helped out with that a few weeks later.

When is a Coincidence not a Coincidence?

When you’re dealing with investigations it’s tricky to pin down exact evidence to prove your case – people sometimes lie and when you catch them out they usually refuse to admit it. Often times you also have to deal with associations of probabilities, you look for groupings of supposedly unconnected events that push the boundaries of coincidence.

The fact Prof. Thurman had admitted direct involvement with the shugdeninfo.com website was a welcome and unexpected gift. It went beyond the mere approval of the site by Tibet House US and indicated that he had been directly involved in its creation with one or more other people. The fact that Tenzin was redirecting his domain to the site before anyone had told him about it on his blog was also helpful, as was his pretense not to know about it until that point, but it still wasn’t enough.

Then there was another unexpected gift, Tenzin updated the registration of his domain (shugden.info) through the same anonymous service as shugdeninfo.com and hosted it on the same servers as shugdeninfo.com. Now both domain names had exactly the same settings.

In the screenshots below you can see that Tenzin originally registered shugden.info using his legal name, Michael Jäckel and used the address of Bodhicharya Centre in Berlin.

Shugden.info (before)

Shugden.info (after)

Shugdeninfo.com

Out of all of Tenzin’s various websites and domain names this is the only one that is registered through the anonymous proxy service WhoisGuard Inc, it is also the only one that is hosted through Cloudflare.

Conclusions

When delving beyond the facade of a ‘simple monk’ or ‘independent expert’ we find that Tenzin Peljor’s background is far from simple or independent.

Here we have someone who in their youth was a Radio Operator in the National People’s Army, and who is familiar with the Soviet style of government propaganda. By his own admission he is, “interested into the dynamics of Nazi, Stasi, dictatorship, totalitarian systems” and has a complex East German biography (including his own Stasi file).

He’s an ex-NKT member, so that would account for his interest in speaking out against them, but there’s a huge gap of 6 years between him leaving the NKT and beginning his online campaign against them, which doesn’t tally. The timing of his campaign seems more closely related to his ordination by the Dalai Lama than his experiences within the NKT.

Moreover his approach to attacking the NKT seems to be in response to their involvement with the protests, rather than being a “survivor“. He began to develop his own websites only in response to the protests in 2008.

Tenzin claims the purpose of his websites are, “to counter the misinformation campaign of the NKT“, yet his own approach appears to be promoting the disinformation campaign of the Tibetan exile leadership. He also created a declaration and canvassed for signatures on it because he was instructed to by people who objected to even the slightest criticism of the Tibetan community.

His new website in response to the media coverage of the protests in 2014 appears to have been created in collaboration with Professor Thurman, who is alleged to have tried to solicit anonymous to hack protesters Twitter accounts (more here). His domain which redirects to the new website is also now hidden behind the same anonymous registration service that Thurman used.

Overall Tenzin Peljor’s campaign against the NKT seems more related to the protests than any negative experiences he had whilst being a member of the group. The level and depth of his involvement over such an extensive time period goes beyond the expected response of a disgruntled “survivor“.

Mr Peljor appears to be an activist who is promoting a clearly defined and well structured campaign. The fact that his campaign started whilst he was living within the Tibetan exile community in India seems to indicate the main influencing factor behind it.

He is well funded and has significant resources and time to invest in this issue that don’t fit with his role as a resident monk at Bodhicharya Centre. For instance at one point he offered to fly to Ireland to discuss his Stasi background when issues about it arose.

The logical conclusion is that Tenzin Peljor is acting in accordance with the wishes of the CTA as one of their de facto agents. The persona he projects as being an ex-NKT “survivor” simply trying to right the wrongs he experienced is nothing other than a smokescreen.

The problem he has with this facade is that it is poorly crafted and badly executed. When exposed to a sustained investigation it crumbles to reveal his close involvement with, and oversight from, the Tibetan exile leadership.

 
Update – 30th Dec 2014

Today Carol McQuire has publicly accused me of lying and taking advantage of Tenzin’s current ‘absent‘ status. In a recent post on social media she said that Tenzin is currently on retreat at Drepung Monastery until April, so she has sprung valiantly to his defense.

Amongst the various inaccuracies in Carol’s post she has likened the timing of this article to, “someone in a boxing ring deliberately hitting a last strike after the whistle has been blown“, claiming it is published at a time when Tenzin is unable to respond to it. This is untrue.

Carol posted her comments a few hours after Tenzin had posted a new article on his blog. Tenzin had also posted a comment on social media about his new article 2 hours prior to Carol’s post. So her claim that Tenzin is somehow absent from this situation is incorrect.

If he is on retreat at Drepung Monastery as claimed then it is a retreat which allows him to continue to work on his blog and social media. As usual with Tenzin and his friends their accounts often crumble when a small degree of scrutiny is applied to them.

She is also incorrect in stating that the initial version of the ex-NKT declaration was posted on the CTA website – Tibet.net. It is only the version which contains no reference to any criticism of the Tibetan community that was ever posted on Tibet.net.

Carol said,

“the first version of the declaration was already published on the CTA’s website before the second had even been thought of. How sad that such an enormous theory of political intrigue that IndyHack has developed has quite differing origins.”

As you can see from Carol’s own posts she requested that people approve the change on August 26th:

It was only after the declaration had been changed that it was allowed to go on the CTA’s official website, Tibet.net. As you can see from Carol’s own post it was not on their website prior to September:

So Carol’s claim that, “the first version of the declaration was already published on the CTA’s website before the second had even been thought of“, is a lie.

It’s another example of Tenzin and his friends playing fast and loose with the truth.

She did at least admit that Tenzin Peljor primarily attacks the NKT because he is, “involved in looking after the Dalai Lama’s interests in the most profound way“.

Unfortunately for Carol her desperate attempt to try and refute the claims made in my article only destroys her own credibility.

Source: http://www.arebuddhistsracist.com/tenzin_peljor.html

When Buddhists Lie

3rd March 2015

When I began researching the Dalai Lama controversy I expected to face a certain degree of lies, deception, and misinformation, but as it turns out this expectation was greatly underestimated. Even when politicians have been caught lying they can often hold their hands up and apologise, yet I encountered some Buddhists who seemed to find this impossible.

As I’ve mentioned previously it’s a strange feeling to find supposedly spiritual people who manage to make politicians look ethical by comparison. During my research there have been three exceptional examples which warrant an article in their own right.

Tenzin Peljor

Tenzin is without doubt the most compulsive and active promoter of misinformation regarding this controversy that I have encountered. He has good reason since he works for the Central Tibetan Authority (CTA) and has been actively promoting their propaganda for over 8 years as a previous article uncovered.

When asked about Tenzin, Dr. Suzanne Newcombe, a researcher with the religious watch charity Inform stated,

“We are aware that he works towards the [sic] promoting the Dalai Lama’s position on various issues.”

adding,

“it is clear from his many public websites that Tenzin Peljor works actively in ways that support the agenda of the CTA.”

Due to his rather sketchy East German military and Stasi background Tenzin aroused the suspicions of Dialogue Ireland whom he was trying to co-opt into his propaganda campaign against the protests. A member of that group who had extensive knowledge of East Germany queried several serious discrepancies in Tenzin’s biography. Rather than explaining this Tenzin instead began to attack Dialogue Ireland accusing them of twisting the facts – an accusation he frequently directs against anyone who fails to agree with his stance.

In addition to running multiple websites under various false names Tenzin also operates several different online identities which he uses to try and create the appearance of people agreeing with his views. After creating the “survivors” group with David Cutshaw, Tenzin engaged in several online conversations between some of his different accounts to make it appear that people were speaking out.

One such identity Tenzin used for this was named York Johns (yjohns2000) which was a similar user name style to David Cutshaw (davcuts2000). Tenzin also set up a You Tube account under this pseudonym where he uploaded several videos to use in his various websites.

The unusual aspect of York Johns You Tube channel is that it contains a large number of German language videos, several of which feature Dr. Birgit Schweiberer, a teacher from Instituto Lama Tzong Khapa, where Tenzin spent several years studying. Both Tenzin and Birgit studied under Geshe Jampa Gyatso at Instituto Lama Tzong Khapa, which makes York Johns decision to upload Birgit’s teachings to his You Tube account a somewhat unbelievable coincidence, unless of course he was Tenzin.

Throughout Tenzin’s history in this controversy he has systematically lied and deceived people. From using fake names to register websites, aliases to falsify online “survivors” accounts, and blatant lies about his activities in India, Tenzin is about as trustworthy as a snake oil salesman.

To the casual observer he appears to be a normal Buddhist monk, who has strict vows against lying. In accordance with Buddhist traditions if it is shown that he has knowingly lied he ceases to be a monk because he has broken a root vow. So far I have exposed just a small fraction of the lies Tenzin has told.

He is a Buddhist monk in the same way that Valerie Plame was an energy consultant. That was her cover whilst being a CIA operations officer and “monk” is Tenzin’s cover whilst being a CTA operations officer. The only difference is the agency they work for.

For example in late December 2014 Tenzin wrote on his blog that he would be away in India until the end of April 2015 and he would be, “offline during that time“, so no comments or articles would be added until he returned. He later amended this on 1st January 2015 because he needed to upload some more articles to the site. He stated:

“I had a change of the schedule in India and some limited internet access. Therefore there was a bit time to confirm comments and to add some additional posts. I might be able to continue this until the 3rd or latest 5th January and then I am totally offline as I said already.”

In actual fact Tenzin was in India not to engage in a strict retreat without internet access but to work with the CTA to counter the protesters online campaigns. The CTA were very concerned they were losing the battle online and the coverage of the protests in the US and Italy had them very scared.

Tenzin has been online almost every day since he’s been in India, working in part on the Wikipedia pages related to the protests, trying to build support for the ban. This is similar to the role he had in 2006 when he first began working for the CTA.

He’s also found time to review comments and articles for his website. Carol McQuire has continued to claim that he is offline and unable to respond to any claims made about his activities. However she is in touch with him via email and has submitted articles for his blog, the latest of which he published on 27th February 2015.

At the time of writing this Tenzin has so far managed upload new articles as well as edit and approve comments on his blog on 19th January, 21st January, 27th January, 29th January, 30th January, 31st January, 2nd February, 8th February, 11th February, 15th February, 16th February, 25th February, 26th February, 27th February, and 1st March. In fact for someone who is supposedly “totally offline” Tenzin has been updating his own blog with a somewhat miraculous diligence.

Tenzin was lying about being “totally offline“, from 5th January onwards. The truth is that he’s been online and very active for the CTA ever since his arrival in Dharamsala. Which brings a very important question to bear – how can a genuine Buddhist monk lie so blatantly and still be a monk?

The answer in Tenzin’s case is quite simple, he’s not really a monk, he’s an operations officer for the CTA.

Carol McQuire

Tenzin’s preeminent recruit in his fight against the protest movement is Carol McQuire, an ex-NKT member. In Carol’s own words her, “greatest refuge for a long while was Tenzin Peljor“.

Although Carol doesn’t work as an employee of the CTA she works for them principally through Tenzin, and whereas Tenzin receives regular payments from the CTA Carol receives only occasional renumeration from them. One such example was her recent trip to Basel as their special guest.

During her time there Carol had privileged access to the event in return for helping Tenzin with his work to oppose the protest movement. A source within the movement who was in Basel stated that during the first day of the protests Carol attempted to gain access to the protest area. She was stopped by the International Shugden Community (ISC) security as she didn’t have a valid pass.

Despite failing to blend in with the ISC protesters she spent long periods of time observing the administrative area and photographing it. It was the opinion of the person I spoke to that she was trying to gather as much information as possible about the organisers and which Tibetans were involved, presumably to feed back to Tenzin.

Carol has continually refused to explain how she managed to attend the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Basel since the event was sold out months in advance. She also dismissed claims that she received any favourable treatment from the CTA or was allowed any privileged access.

However Carol has now posted a picture she took from the side of the stage area when the Dalai Lama was teaching (shown below).

As you can see from this image the access Carol was given by the CTA is not in any way normal. As well as being a highly privileged position it is also a highly dangerous one given her close proximity to the Dalai Lama. It is therefore impossible for anyone to be in this position without having received a high level of clearance from the CTA’s Department of Security who are responsible for the Dalai Lama’s personal security during such events.

Not only does this photograph demonstrate that Carol is considered to be of significant value to the CTA, it also shows that her handlers are connected to senior members of the exile leadership.

As well as assisting Tenzin with managing the “survivors” she has been their main representative with the religious watch charity Inform. Both Carol and Tenzin have spent considerable time and effort trying to unduly influence Inform’s information about the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT) as explained in a previous article.

When that article was first published it contained a screenshot of Carol claiming that Inform had asked her to participate in the Dorje Shugden discussion at the SOAS University in London. Carol responded to various parts of the article but didn’t dispute the screenshot of her comment.

It was only when a follow up article was published 2 weeks later which included a response from Inform that Carol suddenly tried to refute the statement. She deleted the comment that was taken from Facebook and claimed that I had forged the screenshot.

Previously she also lied about the CTA’s involvement with a “survivors declaration” she claimed to have organised. Carol stated that it hadn’t been altered following instructions from the CTA and that the first version of it was published on their website. Screenshots of Carol’s own comments around the time showed that she was lying by making these claims (see more here).

Linda Ciardiello

As part of the CTA’s fight back against the protesters online campaign several of Carol’s associates have taken to Twitter using various pseudonyms. Whilst most of the battle appears to be a ping-pong game of memes from either side it occasionally steps over the bounds of campaigning into hate speech and bullying.

One such instance occurred between the @LaughingDaquini account and Jan, an ISC protest member. Over the course of a few hours @LaughingDaquini accused Jan of creating an image of the Dalai Lama which she found offensive and seeking to, “destroy the Dalai Lama“.

This sort of rhetoric is quite normal for Twitter and for clashes like these, however @LaughingDaquini took it a step further by targeting Jan’s employer and encouraging other users to target them with tweets. What followed was a blatant case of bullying and harassment which was clearly designed to have a negative impact on Jan’s employment.

This type of approach is quite typical of the controversy and what we see in the example of @LaughingDaquini is simply a microcosm of the same approach the CTA takes where they publish the names of protesters and encourage other Tibetans to treat them as outcasts. Rather than addressing the issues the protests raise, namely that of discrimination and segregation, the CTA and its supporters just attack protesters and attempt to bully them into submission.

In my own dealings with @LaughingDaquini I challenged them that they were in fact Linda Ciardiello. Eventually they made a mistake and Linda published the following comment on Facebook:

I had made no threat whatsoever to Linda and I find it somewhat childish that she would make such a claim. What I found interesting though was that I had never communicated directly with Linda, I had only communicated with @LaughingDaquini. Yet here she was stating I had sent her a tweet, clearly Linda Ciardiello is also @LaughingDaquini.

Following this I tweeted the error and she immediately deleted her comment and claimed I had forged it. It would seem that Carol’s approach to being caught out is now the standard protocol – delete the comment, lie about it, and accuse me of forging evidence.

To be honest I don’t know what I find most offensive, being accused of forging evidence or being accused of forging such tediously insignificant pieces of evidence.

Conclusions

The three examples above are by no means the only ones I’ve encountered, they simply illustrate the main trends in this controversy. I’ve lost count of the number of lies I’ve heard, and I’ve lost track of the amount of time it takes to check each one.

From the stock CTA lie that the protesters are funded by China all the way through to lies about forging evidence, each one is convenient, but totally unsupported by any evidence. It seems that Tenzin and his associates have spent so long spinning lies and having people believe them they think they can get away with saying anything.

The problem for people like Carol is that if they claim to represent ex-NKT members with genuine grievances they are completely undermining themselves. With each lie and each falsification they gradually destroy not just their own credibility, but that of other ex-members.

They are obviously highly motivated to criticise the NKT, both financially and in terms of ongoing access to the Dalai Lama, which will play a role of introducing significant bias into their comments. When that bias is also conjoined with clear evidence of lying their credibility is practically non-existent.

If they have an ability to lie and an incentive to lie, then how can Inform or anyone else who deals with them give credence to their comments?

Whilst they may think they are being clever and getting away with making up events to suit their agendas the reality is the opposite.

If Tenzin is honest, as a Buddhist monk is supposed to be, then why is he lying about being offline in India? Why did he lie when he created false users and false accounts for the “survivors” group? Why did he lie about his military and Stasi background in his biography? Why did he lie when he used false names to register websites?

If Carol is honest and a credible “survivor” then why did she lie about the CTA’s involvement with the declaration? Why did she lie about Inform asking her to be on the panel of the Dorje Shugden discussion? Why did she lie about the CTA giving her access to restricted areas? Why is she being given such special treatment by the CTA?

If Linda is honest and credible then why did she lie about her comment on Facebook? Why did she lie when she said I forged it?

This all goes back to the very heart of this issue – if there is no discrimination and persecution of Shugden Buddhists by the Dalai Lama and his government then why are there so many lies?

If these people are lying to protect the Dalai Lama then what else are they lying about?

 
Update

4th March 2015

In a continuation of her online antics Linda Ciardiello has continued to make false allegations about me. Normally I ignore most of these, but when people are wrongly named as being me it puts their life in danger.

I have publicly explained several times to Dalai Lama supporters that I have received credible threats to my life and I have security precautions in place to mitigate against these risks. Other people who aren’t me don’t have those measures in place and when people recklessly name someone as being me they put that person in serious danger.

It is beyond ironic that Linda accuses me of threatening her and at the same time threatens someone else and puts their safety at risk. Her post is shown below:

The person who has independently researched the matter is an associate of Robert Thurman and is loosely connected to the Anonymous hacking collective. He attends Tibet House in New York and is very much against Shugden practice.

He’s currently on a US National Security Agency (NSA) watch list and he threatened to hack into several protesters Twitter accounts around the time of the LamaGate incident. This is the type of person Linda, Carol, and Tenzin think will add credibility to their cause.

In addition to lying about me forging evidence Linda also lies about this person’s background and independence on the issue. She uses that as justification for endangering someone’s personal safety and the safety of their family.

Below Carol is shown repeating the same false accusation with absolutely no regard for the named person’s welfare or safety. She admits the information comes from a “hacker“, but that clearly doesn’t bother her.

This again illustrates my point that people like Linda and Carol, who claim to be representing ex-NKT members undermine their own credibility by lying and bullying people. What they fail to understand is that in so doing they also undermine the credibility of any ex-NKT members they represent who may have genuine grievances.

It seems very clear they are more concerned with protecting the reputation of the Dalai Lama than in helping ex-NKT members. To that end lying, bullying, threatening, deceiving people, and relying on hackers all appear to be acceptable methods for them.

Source: http://www.arebuddhistsracist.com/when_buddhists_lie.html

Yet More Lies

7th March 2015

It comes with the territory of investigative journalism that people will lie both to you and about you. As I explained in a previous article, When Buddhists Lie, some of the Dalai Lama’s western supporters will happily lie if it helps to suppress the truth about issues in the Tibetan exile community.

One such example, Tenzin Peljor, has responded to some of the accusations against him with a post on one of his blogs accusing me of being an, “ill-informed conspiracy theorist“. Now I know that Tenzin isn’t my greatest fan, but this is going a little far.

It’s a cheap shot simply to try and dismiss these accusations as a conspiracy theory. Also, one of the burdens on someone making such a claim is to show some weakness in the evidence against them. Tenzin’s approach to this is simply to deny everything in an affronted tone.

In itself this is nothing new, I’ve encountered it time and again when exposing lies. To try and defend themselves people simply tell more lies, which is exactly what Tenzin did.

One of the lies I exposed is that Tenzin claimed he was offline whilst being in India. He specified that from 5th January 2015, “I am totally offline as I said already.“

I refuted this lie by stating that Tenzin had been online almost every day since his arrival in India as he was working for the CTA in countering the protests against the Dalai Lama’s ban. I provided evidence for this by showing that Tenzin had been actively updating one of his websites, publishing articles, and approving comments on it on 15 separate dates between 6th January and 3rd March.

Ironically Tenzin’s defence of himself relied in part on his ability to read my article and write a response, which he published on 4th March, again proving that he was lying about being offline in India.

Interestingly Tenzin’s main concern is about “Inform“, a religious research charity he stands accused of manipulating, and their comments about his websites. The particular comment from Inform he spends much of the time trying to refute is, “it is clear from his many public websites that Tenzin Peljor works actively in ways that support the agenda of the CTA.“

He seems to take great exception to this comment, yet he shows no interest in explaining why he lied by using a false name to register two of his websites to an address in Gotha, his childhood home town, as shown below:

It is the same address in Gotha he used to register another domain (info-buddhism.com) using his legal name, Michael Jäckel.

Inform, who now appear to be floundering between criticising and defending Tenzin’s online activities, claimed in his post that:

“The opinions voiced on these website [sic] are his as an individual. In particular, on http://info-buddhism.com/ Tenzin Peljor promotes a range of independent academic opinions, some of which are critical of the CTA, and Tibetan Buddhism more generally.”

I don’t know why Inform believe they can state as fact that the opinions voiced on his websites, “are his as an individual“. It seems a very strange comment for an independent researcher to make. What facts or evidence does Inform use to make this assertion? Just Tenzin’s claim that they are his independent opinions.

By now I’m starting to see a pattern with Inform, but I’ll come back to that in a future article.

For the time being it is worth bearing in mind that the info-buddhism.com website is the same as the info-buddhismus.de website, one is English and one is German. So why did Tenzin lie when he registered info-buddhismus.de?

Another assertion Tenzin makes is:

“I am not working for the CTA nor did I set up or run the website http://www.dalailamaprotesters.com. However, I gave them permission to use articles from http://www.info-buddhism.com and after their request I gave them also the domain http://www.shugden.info which I bought for another purpose.”

Dalailamaprotesters.com began life as shugdeninfo.com, which shares a close resemblance to Tenzin’s domain name shugden.info. It also contains content almost exclusively from Tenzin’s websites.

On 12th December 2014 Tenzin published an interview he had organised with Dr Robert Barnett on his info-buddhism.com website. What Tenzin doesn’t know is that on 10th December, Dr Barnett revealed to an International Shugden Community (ISC) member that he had just been contacted by the organisers of the dalailamaprotesters.com website.

Dr Barnett stated that prior to that contact he had no knowledge of the website, nor the person who contacted him on behalf of it. Clearly that person can’t have been Robert Thurman as Dr Barnett knows Thurman very well.

It’s a somewhat unusual coincidence that days after the organiser of the dalailamaprotesters.com website contacted Dr Barnett, Tenzin published an interview with him on his info-buddhism.com website. Of course this isn’t definitive proof of any direct link between Tenzin and the dalailamaprotesters.com website, but there are a lot of coincidences surrounding it.

For instance they initially used a domain name very similar to the one Tenzin had registered under his own name. Why not use the one Tenzin had already? Because this would tie Tenzin directly to the site.

So a similar name was used which was registered under an anonymous domain registration service. Tenzin’s own domain name was later re-registered under the same anonymous service.

The reason that Tenzin’s shugden.info domain name couldn’t be used to host the site is because no matter how many times it was re-registered it would always have the original registration details on its record, so it would always lead back to him.

When the dalailamaprotesters.com website was launched (under the name shugdeninfo.com) it contained content exclusively from Tenzin’s websites. Over time it has added an occasional article from other sources, but initially it was only his content.

To summarise, the website Tenzin claims not to have set up or run contained content exclusively from his own websites, was on an almost identical domain name to one he had registered under his own name, and he also redirected shugden.info to the new site.

Add to that Dr Barnett’s revelation that he was contacted by the operators of the website days before Tenzin published an interview with him and the probability of Tenzin lying about his involvement with dalailamaprotesters.com is extremely high.

Conclusions

Perhaps this is all just an elaborate ill-informed conspiracy theory as Tenzin would have us believe? If so, why have Tenzin and his friends been caught lying so often?

• Why did Tenzin lie about being offline in India?

• Why did he lie about his name when registering his websites?

• Why did he lie when he pretended to be York Johns?

• Why did an expert question his East German military and Stasi background, and why did Tenzin refuse to explain the inaccuracies?

• If he isn’t working for the CTA then why did Tenzin only begin his activism against the NKT after he had taken ordination from the Dalai Lama in India? Why didn’t he begin it in any of the 6 years prior to that?

• Why did Tenzin lie and claim Lobsang Jangchub wrote an article about Sera Monastery when he knew it was written by his friend Jamyang Khedrup?

• Why did Carol lie about Inform asking her to be on the SOAS discussion panel?

• Why did she lie about deleting the comment showing this on Facebook and then claim I had forged it?

• Why did Carol sit so closely to the Dalai Lama in Basel if she doesn’t have contacts in senior positions within the CTA?

• Why did she lie about the CTA’s involvement in drafting the “survivors declaration” and when it was published on their official website?

• Why did Linda Ciardiello lie about an ISC member to their employer accusing them of creating a meme and seeking to, “destroy the Dalai Lama“?

• Why did she delete a comment exposing her as the operator of the @laughingdaquini Twitter account and then lie about me forging the comment?

I don’t expect them to have the courage to be truthful in these matters, rather I fully expect them to continue to lie and deceive people. Sadly for them I will continue to expose their lies and take away their most useful tool, as Stephen King once said:

The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.

Source: http://www.arebuddhistsracist.com/yet_more_lies.html