EU Parliamentarian Chairs Call on China and Vietnam for Investigation into Tulku Hungkar’s Mysterious Death 

By Tenzin Chokyi

DHARAMSALA, 1 May: A month-long campaign of advocacy, protest, and appeals by the exiled Tibetan community and rights groups has now prompted formal attention from the European Parliament. In a significant development, key EU officials have called on China and Vietnam to “ensure a transparent, independent and impartial investigation” into the suspicious death of Tulku Hungkar Dorjee.

According to a report from the Office of Tibet in Brussels, dated 30 April on Central Tibetan Administration’s(CTA) official website, Tibet.net, the Chair of the European Parliament subcommittee on Human Rights, MEP Mounir Satouri, and the Chair of the Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China, MEP Engin Eroglu, have jointly written a letter to the Chinese Ambassador to the European Union.

In the letter, they have urged Chinese authorities to facilitate a “transparent, independent and impartial investigation” into Tulku’s disappearance from his monastery in Tibet, his subsequent suspicious death and hasty cremation in Vietnam.

Additionally, the Chair of the subcommittee on Human Rights, MEP Satouri, has written a similar letter to the Vietnamese Ambassador to the EU, raising parallel concerns.

The report stated that both letters have expressed grave concern and alarm over the unexplained circumstances of Tulku Hungkar Dorje’s death and the subsequent cremation of his body in Vietnam without the consent of his family.

Confirmation of the death of Tulku Hungkar Dorjee of Lung Ngon Monastery in Golog, occupied Tibet surfaced online on 3 April through an official statement released by the monastery. 

According to reports, two days earlier, Chinese authorities had presented the monastery with a death certificate claiming that the Tulku had died of an illness while on retreat in Vietnam—a cause of death also echoed in the monastery’s public statement.

However, during a press conference held on 5 April, the Dhomay Cholka Association (DCA) refuted this explanation, asserting that the monastery’s announcement had been made under pressure. 

Based on information from sources in both occupied Tibet and Vietnam, the DCA claimed that Tulku Hungkar Dorjee had gone into hiding in Vietnam in late September 2024, fleeing an escalated Chinese crackdown on Tibetan educators and schools that promote Tibetan language and culture. 

The Tulku was reportedly executed on 28th April 2025 in a Chinese-led operation in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. 

In the wake of his suspicious death, the CTA, also known as the Tibetan government-in-exile and a coalition of NGOs working for Tibet, called for a transparent investigation and demanded the return of his body to his monastery in Tibet. They denounced the incident as yet another example of China’s expanding campaign of transnational repression.

Activist groups, including the Students for a Free Tibet(SFT) and Tibetan Youth Congress(TYC) also organised several protests in front of Vietnamese and Chinese embassies in India, the US and Europe.

The issue was covered by several International media outlets, including the BBC, The Vietnamese, Human Rights Watch and several Indian news media outlets. 

Despite widespread international pressure, Tulku Hungkar’s body was cremated in Vietnam on 20 April without the consent of his family and without permitting a delegation of monks from his monastery, who had traveled to Vietnam to retrieve his remains, to participate. The decision drew further condemnation from the Tibetan exile community.

On 28 April, in what was widely perceived as a coerced move, the monastery in occupied Tibet issued a statement claiming that it had received the Tulku’s remains “with the kind help of the Chinese and Vietnamese governments.”

The Office of Tibet in Brussels, the official representative office of the Dalai Lama and the CTA, has acknowledged the support from the European Parliament Chairs regarding Tulku Hungkar Dorje’s suspicious death in Chinese custody in Vietnam and extended heartfelt gratitude.

“We deeply value the Chairs’ engagement and encourage sustained international attention to ensure such troubling incidents are neither ignored nor repeated,”  Representative Rigzin Genkhang has said in the report.