China is censoring media reports about the daughter of Tibet's 10th Panchen Lama, industry sources said, apparently worried that her popularity would eclipse that of her father's disputed successor.
Princess Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo is the only child of the late 10th Panchen Lama - the most senior religious figure in Tibetan Buddhism after the Himalayan region's god-king, the Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising.
In 1995 the exiled Dalai Lama and China's atheist Communist authorities chose rival reincarnations of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989. The 6-year-old boy anointed by the Dalai Lama swiftly disappeared from public view, leading human rights groups to dub him the world's youngest political prisoner.
The Communist Party's Propaganda Department blacklisted the princess in July on grounds that "religious figures were unhappy" with reports about her in Chinese media, said two independent media industry sources who requested anonymity.
"Many portals republished an article on her by the Southern People Weekly but were forced to withdraw it," one source said.
Party propaganda mandarins ordered newspapers, magazines, portals and networks to seek permission before running any story about Rinzinwangmo in future, the sources said.
Analysts said the Propaganda Department was apparently worried the princess's popularity would surpass that of the boy chosen by China as the 11th Panchen Lama.
"There is some fear that she will become quite popular and gradually attract significant grassroots affection and support among Tibetans, while the official 11th Panchen Lama seems unlikely to achieve that," said Tibetologist Robert Barnett.
"The restrictions, even though quite mild, are surprising and suggest ... there is an increasing nervousness in Chinese policy on popular movements, religion or Tibet," Barnett added.
The Propaganda Department declined to comment. Asked for comment, Rinzinwangmo would neither confirm nor deny she had been blacklisted. "How can this be? Last year, Uncle Jintao and Aunt Yandong arranged for me to return home to be groomed," the princess told Reuters, referring to party chief Hu Jintao and the party's point person for winning over non-Communists, Liu Yandong.
"My dad was a patriotic religious leader. I gave up everything abroad and came back, which proves I'm also a patriot," said Rinzinwangmo, who returned home last year from the United States where she had earned a degree in political science.
Rinzinwangmo played down the perceived rivalry.
"I'm not competing against the 11th (Panchen Lama). He's a religious figure. I'm not," said the princess, who is studying finance at Hu's alma mater, Beijing's elite Tsinghua University. "I did nothing wrong. There is no reason for the Propaganda Department to strangle me. I don't believe this," she said.
The sources said Lifeweek magazine, which has a circulation of about 200,000, was told to pull the plug on a recent edition which contained an interview with the princess.
It was unclear which part of the interview was problematic. Both in this and in her interview with Southern People Weekly, she spoke of her father's imprisonment during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Phoenix TV, which is popular among middle-class Chinese, was told to delay broadcasting an interview with her, source said.
Lifeweek and Phoenix declined to comment.
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