Case Details and Biography of Dorje Dan Rinpoche, Founder and Principal of Jiuzhi County Dorje Dan Ethnic Vocational and Technical School, Who Has Been Subjected to Enforced Disappearance

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On May 8, 2026, this outlet learned the case details and biography of Dorje Dan Rinpoche, founder and principal of Jiuzhi County Dorje Dan Ethnic Vocational and Technical School, who has been subjected to enforced disappearance. They are now reported as follows:

Dorje Dan Rinpoche:Born in 1967, his real name is Dorje Dan. He is from Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province (hereinafter referred to as Golog Prefecture), abbot of Mentang Monastery in Jiuzhi County, Golog Prefecture, a Tibetan religious leader (that is, a Rinpoche), vice-chairman of the Jiuzhi County Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, founder and principal of Jiuzhi County Dorje Dan Ethnic Vocational and Technical School (a public-interest school), and a Chinese prisoner of conscience.

In his early years, he established a monastery in Mentang Township, Jiuzhi County, Golog Prefecture, and served as its abbot. As a result, for a long period afterward, he played an important role in local religious and community life; in July 2007, he became involved in public-interest education and founded the “Dorje Dan Ethnic Vocational and Technical School,” which mainly offered courses in Tibetan, Chinese, English and political science, as well as multiple traditional-culture courses and skills/technical training programs, including Tibetan medicine and herbalism, traditional thangka painting, ethnic clothing design and tailoring, traditional ethnic song and dance, and tourism services and management; as enrollment and demand in the employment market continued to expand, his vocational school gradually became one of the larger and most influential vocational schools in the area, with the number of enrolled students at one point reaching more than 800 and the total number of graduates over the years reaching several thousand; during this period, many students successfully found employment after completing their studies, while many others continued on to further education because of their outstanding academic performance; because of his effective management of the school, its work received full recognition and support from local officials, such as passing inspections of its vocational-education qualifications by national education departments, and he was consequently given an exclusive interview in Beijing by the China Volunteers magazine; it passed a cultural-heritage project supported by a state-owned bank and a development foundation with a state-owned background, and received financial support; and it nevertheless successfully continued operating after a local government department inspected the school in early November 2025; in addition to playing a role in religious and educational work, he also actively participated in local public affairs, becoming vice-chairman of the Jiuzhi County Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and because he paid close attention to local people’s livelihoods and encouraged commercial activities, he was widely regarded by local people as a community leader who “provided economic and social support to families in need”; in early November 2024, it became known that he had suddenly been subjected to enforced disappearance and was later released; on December 4, 2025, he was again suddenly taken away and criminally detained for unknown reasons by police from Mentang Township, Jiuzhi County, and has been out of contact ever since; after investigations by multiple parties, the reason for his arrest appears to have a great deal to do with the fact that he had long devoted himself to teaching Tibetan-language education and local traditional handicraft skills, thereby provoking the displeasure of the Chinese Communist Party; under the current authorities, the Chinese Communist government is implementing harsher and more forceful policies toward the Tibetan education system and institutions owned or operated by Tibetans. Most of the operators of these institutions are high-ranking lamas and intellectuals, while the authorities prohibit schools from using Tibetan as a language of instruction and instead force students, as far as possible, to attend state-run boarding schools—that is, schools that teach only Chinese, Chinese culture and Chinese ideology; since his arrest, the outside world has learned only through scattered word-of-mouth reports that his case is undergoing investigation and supplementary investigation, possibly indicating that he has already been formally arrested by the local procuratorate or that this is before the filing of a lawsuit; soon after he was arrested by the Chinese Communist authorities in Jiuzhi County, the school was closed by the authorities and the students were sent home; it was also learned that his family members and relevant relatives and friends were all warned by the authorities not to meet with him, while the authorities dispatched rights-defense security personnel to conduct round-the-clock surveillance around Mintang Monastery in Jiuzhi County, around villages, and in restaurants and teahouses where people gather, in order to prevent people from making sudden appeals or undertaking petitioning actions.

He is currently being held in a prison in Qinghai Province.