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Karmapa gets refugee status

Karmapa, the 15-year-old monk who is head of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and who escaped from his monastery in Lhasa in Tibet and arrived in India last year, has been granted refugee status, Voice of America reported on Friday.

VOA's Tibetan service confirmed the news with Tibetan Minister Kalen Tashi Wangdi, who is in New Delhi.

No Indian officials were immediately available for comment.

Karmapa, who was originally Urgyen Trinley Dorjee, had written to Union Home Minister L K Advani, seeking refugee status. The appeal had been supported by the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The issue of granting refugee status was a sensitive issue, and could affect ties with China, which had named him successor to the 16th Karmapa in 1992.

EXTERNAL LINKS
The Government of Tibet in Exile

His Holiness the Seventeenth Gyalwa Karmapa Ugyen Trinley Dorje

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