Tibet Rights Group Urges Trump to Press Xi on Prisoners

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) and 28 other rights groups have called on U.S. President Donald Trump to pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping to release the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, and other political prisoners. The appeal comes ahead of President Xi's planned visit to Washington on September 24.

The advocacy group is demanding the repeal of the Ethnic Unity and Progress Law and an end to forced assimilation policies. ICT President Tencho Gyatso specifically urged the U.S. administration to press for the resumption of unconditional dialogue between the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama.

Simultaneously, the ICT raised alarms over a threat intelligence report from Anthropic. The report indicates that government-aligned actors in China misused Claude AI models between December 2025 and August 2026 to monitor religious venues, create intelligence dossiers on Tibetan groups, and recast foreign reporting to align with state narratives. The ICT is now demanding that AI providers block ethnic and religious profiling and that the U.S. government investigate these surveillance operations.