Forty-one Tibetans who were detained by the Nepalese police while they were on a bus bound for India have been released to a Nepalese human-rights group, an advocate for Tibetan rights said Friday.
The advocate, Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet, said Friday in London that the human-rights group, the Human Rights Organization of Nepal, and other contacts in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, had told her that immigration officials and the police had allowed all the Tibetans to be released.
Saunders said the Tibetans were mostly from Kham and Amdo, Tibetan regions now ruled by China, and were on a pilgrimage to sacred sites in Nepal and India. She said they likely planned to go in January to an important Buddhist ceremony, the Kalachakra teaching, in Bodh Gaya, an Indian city.
It is unclear what those Tibetans will do now. They could end up at the Kathmandu transit center of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. From there, many Tibetans make their way to India, against China's wishes. Saunders said the Tibetans were in a "very precarious situation."
The Human Rights Organization of Nepal did not respond to an email asking for an update on the Tibetans' situation.
The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, is expected to teach at the Kalachakra gathering Jan. 3-14. He offers this teaching regularly at different places, and many Tibetans try to go to Bodh Gaya, the site where the Buddha attained enlightenment, when the Dalai Lama travels there from his home in northern India to teach.
He preached Saturday to thousands of supporters in Mongolia at the Gandantegchenlin monastery, where he spoke about materialism to kick-start a four-day visit that Mongolia has said will be purely religious in nature and won't include meetings with officials.
Still, the trip could have repercussions for landlocked Mongolia's relationship with China, which protested previous visits by the Dalai Lama by briefly closing its border in 2002 and temporarily canceling flights from Beijing in 2006.
China views the Dalai Lama as a separatist seeking to split Tibet from China, and it opposes all countries that welcome and host him.
The Dalai Lama has been based in India since fleeing Tibet during an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.
But Tibetans remain devoted to him, and many try to travel to India to see him.
Saunders said Chinese officials were making great efforts to prevent Tibetans from traveling to see the Dalai Lama, and particularly from traveling to Bodh Gaya.
"What we know is that the Chinese authorities have tightened controls on Tibetans, in some areas going from house to house to confiscate people's passports," she said.
On Friday, China's Foreign Ministry strongly urged Mongolia to deny the Dalai Lama a visit for the sake of a "sound and steady" development of bilateral ties.
The Dalai Lama's visit comes at a time when Mongolian leaders are seeking a $4.2 billion loan from Beijing to pull the country out of a deep recession. With commodity prices slumping, Mongolia is running out of hard currency to repay foreign debts and is seeking help from a neighbor that accounts for roughly 90 percent of its exports.
Mongolian Buddhism is closely tied to Tibet's strain, and many in the heavily Buddhist country revere the Dalai Lama, who first visited there in 1979.
Mongolian religious figures say the visit could be the last for the 81-year-old spiritual leader.
Daritseren, a 73-year-old ethnic Mongolian from Russian Siberia, said she heard only on Friday that the Dalai Lama was visiting Mongolia and traveled with 40 other people for 15 hours overnight to make it just in time for the sermon.
Boldbaatar, a 75-year-old herder, said he rushed from 125 miles away.
"I'm an old man," he said. "Maybe I'm seeing his holiness, the incarnation of Lord Buddha, for the last time."
The Dalai Lama is scheduled to chant special sutras today at a large sports facility built by Chinese companies through Chinese aid.
Religious scholars say the Dalai Lama is expected to offer input on the search for the 10th reincarnation of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, a top-ranked lama in Buddhism.
Information for this article was contributed by Edward Wong of The New York Times and by Ganbat Namjilsangarav of The Associated Press.
A Section on 11/20/2016