Response To The Protests By Third Parties
In the United States, the protestors' constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech was ensured by state and local police and governments. The police liaised with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the security and law enforcement arm of the United States Department of State.
Time Magazine reported on July 19, 2008:
| “ | Experts seem to think that there is something to the Shugden allegations. "There is considerable anecdotal evidence to support what they say," Stephen Batchelor, co-founder of the Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies and Contemporary Enquiry, wrote in an email to TIME, although, he adds, "I have yet to see any hard evidence." Wrote Donald Lopez of the University of Michigan, "Buddhist monks who apply for an Identity Certificates must also submit a letter form their abbot. I was told that there may have been cases in which, contrary to the policy of the Government-in-Exile, monks who worship Shugden have not been provided with such a letter." | ” |
Tibet scholar Robert Barnett of Columbia University opposes how he was quoted by Time magazine's correspondent David van Biema. He states that he made very clear to him that "ID cards are not given out by the exile administration, but by the Indian authorities". According to Barnett:
| “ | I also made it clear that the Western Shugden group's allegations are problematic: they are akin to attacking the Pope because some lay Catholics somewhere abuse non-believers or heretics. The Western Shugden Group is severely lacking in credibility, since its form of spirit-worship is heterodox, provocative and highly sectarian in Buddhist terms and so more than likely to be banned from mainstream monasteries – while its claimed concerns about cases of discrimination in India should be addressed by working within the Tibetan community instead of opportunistically attacking the Dalai Lama in order to provoke misinformed publicity for their sect.” | ” |
The WSS agree that the practice has been banned in monasteries, but reply that Barnett's other claims are unfounded: there is no Pope of Buddhism, the Dalai Lama himself is the one abusing the so-called "non-believers", relying upon Wisdom Buddha Dorje Shugden is not spirit worship and his practitioners are not sectarian, and the reason for "provoking" publicity is to help restore religious freedom amongst Tibetans in exile, not for its own sake.
Claims about 4 million Shugden followers made in reports by France 24 and Al Jazeera were rejected by scholars. Journalist Andy Brown comments:
| “ | "There are only about six million Tibetans in the world at most, of whom less than half are members of the Gelugpa order (Steven Lane estimated 30 per cent), where the veneration of Shugden is concentrated. Even among the Gelugpa, only monks can be initiated into the cult of Shugden, and only a minority of those actually are. Most of the experts I talked to thought that about 100,000 people at most could be affected by the Dalai Lama’s ban." | ” |
Read more about this topic: Western Shugden Society
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