The Central Tibetan Administration is Tibet's elected parliamentary government based in Dharamshala, India. It is also referred to as the Tibetan Government in Exile. It is composed of a judiciary branch, a legislative branch, and an executive branch. Since its formation in 1959, the Central Tibetan Administration has not been recognised by China. The Tibetan diaspora and refugees support the Central Tibetan Administration by voting for members of Parliament, the President and by making annual financial contributions through the use of the "Green Book". The Central Tibetan Administration also receives international support from organisations and individuals.
The Panchen Lama, is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in the Gelug tradition, with its spiritual authority second only to Dalai Lama. Along with the council of high lamas, he is in charge of seeking out the next Dalai Lama. "Panchen" is a portmanteau of "Pandita" and "Chenpo", meaning "Great scholar".
Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman is an American Buddhist author and academic who has written, edited, and translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism. He was the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, before retiring in June 2019. "Robert Thurman held the first endowed chair in Buddhist Studies in the West." He also is the co-founder and president of the Tibet House US New York. He translated the Vimalakirti Sutra from the Tibetan Kanjur into English. He is the father of actress Uma Thurman.
Tibet House is an international, loosely affiliated group of nonprofit, cultural preservation organizations founded at the request of the Dalai Lama, to preserve, present, and protect Tibet's ancient traditions of philosophy, mind science, art, and culture due to the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 and subsequent Tibetan diaspora. The first Tibet House was founded in New Delhi, India in 1965.
The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) is a non-profit advocacy group working to promote democratic freedoms for Tibetans, ensure their human rights, and protect Tibetan culture and the environment. Founded in 1988, ICT is the world's largest Tibet-related NGO, with several thousand members and strong bases of support in North America and Europe. On March 15, 2018, the ICT completed 30 years of service to the Tibetan community and received a video message from the Dalai Lama. ICT also released its new logo. An event was also held in the United States Congress on March 6, 2018 to mark the event with Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Jim McGovern, ICT Chairman Richard Gere, Representative Ngodup Tsering and ICT Board Member Tempa Tsering making remarks.
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, is the 11th Panchen Lama belonging to the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, as recognized and announced by the 14th Dalai Lama on 14 May 1995. Three days later on 17 May, the 6-year-old Panchen Lama was kidnapped by the Chinese government, after the State Council of the People's Republic of China failed in its efforts to install a substitute. A Chinese substitute is seen as a political tool to undermine the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, which traditionally is recognized by the Panchen Lama. Gedhun Choekyi Nyima remains forcibly detained by the Chinese government, along with his family, in an undisclosed location since 1995. His khenpo, Chadrel Rinpoche, and another Gelugpa monk, Jampa Chungla, were also arrested. The United Nations, with the support of numerous states, organizations, and private individuals continue to call for the 11th Panchen Lama's release.
Jetsun Pema is the sister of the 14th Dalai Lama. For 42 years she was the President of the Tibetan Children's Villages (TCV) school system for Tibetan refugee students.
The history of Tibet from 1950 to the present includes the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, and the Battle of Chamdo. Before then, Tibet had been a "de facto" independent state/province under the governance of the Republic of China. In 1951, Tibetan representatives in Beijing signed the Seventeen-point Agreement under duress, which affirmed China's sovereignty over Tibet while it simultaneously provided for an autonomous administration led by Tibet's spiritual leader, and then-political leader, the 14th Dalai Lama. During the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when Tibetans arose to prevent his possible assassination, the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet to northern India where he established the Central Tibetan Administration, which rescinded the Seventeen-point Agreement. The majority of Tibet's land mass, including all of U-Tsang and areas of Kham and Amdo, was officially established in 1965 as Tibet Autonomous Region, within China.
Robert Webster Ford CBE was a British radio operator who worked in Tibet in the late 1940s. He was one of the few Westerners to be appointed by the Government of Tibet in the period of de facto independence between 1912 and the year 1950 when the Chinese army marched on Chamdo. He was arrested and jailed for five years by the Chinese. In 1994, he declared that he "had the opportunity to witness and experience at first hand the reality of Tibetan independence." In 1956 he was appointed at the British Diplomatic Service and served in the Foreign Office.
The 14th Dalai Lama, known as Gyalwa Rinpoche to the Tibetan people, is the current Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader of Tibet, and a retired political leader of Tibet. Born on 6 July 1935, or in the Tibetan calendar, in the Wood-Pig Year, 5th month, 5th day, he is considered a living Bodhisattva; specifically, an emanation of Avalokiteśvara. He is also the leader of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, formally headed by the Ganden Tripa. The government of Tibet, the Ganden Phodrang, invested the Dalai Lama with temporal duties until his exile in 1959. On April 29, 1959, the Dalai Lama established the independent Tibetan government in exile, the Central Tibetan Administration, in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie, which then moved in May 1960 to Dharamshala, where he resides. He retired as political head in 2011 to make way for a democratic government.
Lobsang Sangay is a Tibetan-American politician who was the Sikyong (President) of the Tibetan-government-in-exile, officially known as Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). He held the position from 2012 to 2021, and previously served as Kalön Tripa from 2011 to 2012. Following his election, at the request of the 14th Dalai Lama, the Tibetan parliament-in-exile amended the organisation's bylaws to remove the Dalai Lama's executive authority, making Lobsang Sangay its highest leader. In 2012, to reflect this change, Lobsang Sangay's title as chief executive was changed from kalön tripa to sikyong.
The Tibetan diaspora are the diaspora of Tibetan people living outside China.
Human rights in Tibet are a contentious issue. Although the United States advocates and provided funds to Dalai Lama's independence movement, the United States did not recognize Tibet as a country. Reported abuses of human rights in Tibet include restricted freedom of religion, belief, and association; arbitrary arrest; maltreatment in custody, including torture; and forced abortion and sterilization. The status of religion, mainly as it relates to figures who are both religious and political, such as the exile of the 14th Dalai Lama, is a regular object of criticism. Additionally, freedom of the press in China is absent, with Tibet's media tightly controlled by the Chinese leadership, making it difficult to accurately determine the scope of human rights abuses.
George Neilson Patterson also known as Khampa Gyau and Patterson of Tibet, was a Scottish engineer and missionary who served as medical officer and diplomatic representative of the Tibetan resistance movement during the Chinese invasion of Tibet.
Protests and uprisings in Tibet against the government of the People's Republic of China have occurred since 1950, and include the 1959 uprising, the 2008 uprising, and the subsequent self-immolation protests.
Tethong Tenzin Namgyal is a Tibetan politician and a former Prime Minister of Central Tibetan Administration.
As of July 2020, 156 monks, nuns, and ordinary people self-immolated in Tibet since 27 February 2009, when Tapey, a young monk from Kirti Monastery, set himself on fire in the marketplace in Ngawa City, Ngawa County, Sichuan. According to the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), "Chinese police have beaten, shot, isolated, and disappeared self-immolators who survived."
Dölma Gyari is a well-known Tibetan politician in exile, a former activist, active since the early 1980s.
Tibet House US (THUS) is a Tibetan cultural preservation and education nonprofit founded in 1987 in New York City by a group of Westerners after the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, had expressed his wish to establish a cultural institution to build awareness of Tibetan culture.
Lobsang Nyandak, sometimes written Lobsang Nyendak also called Lobsang Nyandak Zayul is a Tibetan diplomat and politician. born in 1965 in Kalimpong, India where he performed his studies in Herbertpur and at Panjab University in Chandigarh. There, he held functions at Tibetan Youth Congress before becoming the founding Executive Director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. Member of the National Democratic Party of Tibet, he was elected deputy and was selected as a minister by Samdhong Rinpoche, the first elected Kalon Tripa of Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). He then was the Representative of the 14th Dalai Lama to the Americas and became president of The Tibet Fund.
