Washington, September 17, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) has urged US President Donald Trump to raise the issue of Tibet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and seek the release of the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, during their planned meeting in Washington.
The advocacy group made the appeal ahead of Xi’s US visit, calling for the resumption of dialogue without preconditions between Beijing and representatives of the Dalai Lama and democratically elected Tibetan leaders. It also called for an end to policies it described as forced assimilation.
ICT President Tencho Gyatso said Trump should use his meeting with Xi to press for renewed Sino-Tibetan dialogue, particularly in view of what the organisation described as concerns surrounding China’s new “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law”.
ICT also called for the release of the Panchen Lama and other political prisoners. If Beijing does not release him, the group urged Chinese authorities to allow US officials to meet him independently. According to ICT, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima has not been publicly seen since Chinese authorities took him into custody more than three decades ago.
The organisation separately raised concerns over alleged AI-assisted surveillance of Tibetan organisations and communities. Its claims followed an Anthropic threat intelligence report covering misuse of Claude between December 2025 and August 2026.
Anthropic said it had disrupted China-based operations in which actors used Claude to compile intelligence on Tibetan Buddhist civil society, the Central Tibetan Administration and advocacy organisations, including ICT and Students for a Free Tibet. The report said operators used the AI system to process multilingual material, prepare Chinese-language dossiers and monitor social media, while also conducting reconnaissance of religious venues.
Anthropic further reported that one China-based religious affairs intelligence operation instructed Claude to adopt “China’s standpoint” and describe the Tibetan administration in exile as an “illegal separatist administration”. It said the actors targeted religious leaders and organisations across several communities.
ICT joined 28 other rights organisations in urging Xi to release prisoners of conscience and end what the groups described as transnational repression. They also called for changes to laws they said were being used to restrict peaceful expression, religious practice and dissent.
The group has also called for the repeal of the Ethnic Unity and Progress Law and alleged political interference in Buddhist institutions, demolition of monastic residences and the separation of Tibetan children from their families through state-run boarding schools.
“Governments and AI companies must ensure that technologies built to expand human knowledge do not become instruments for authoritarian governments to monitor people, intimidate communities and impose their version of history on the digital world,” Gyatso said.
ICT has urged AI companies to prevent political, religious and ethnic profiling, shut down accounts involved in abusive activity and share information about identified threats. It also called on governments, including the US, to investigate the reported operations and protect affected communities.
The Chinese government’s response to the allegations was not included in the ICT statements.
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