The DL clearly states his position that our practice is Not Religion.
So, if we know that is his view, it doesn't make sense to keep trying to convince him to 'give Religious freedom'. I understand trying to show the apparent contradiction between his talks and what we're asking publicly, but think about the psychology of communication here. People in general and his supporters especially regard the DL as a Buddhist authority, so by emphasizing religious freedom and Dorje Shugden, we continuously draw ourselves AND the media into the conveluded battle of words on 'who is Dorje Shugden'. It seems to continually distract everyone from what I feel our first and immediate objective should be - to end the human rights abuses such as violent protests, beatings, shrine and home destruction, withholding public services such as school and hospital, posting personal info on walls to incite violence...
Imagine how different the dialogue would have been between these two if she was asking and telling the DL 'you stop abusing the human rights of your own people' 'you must stop the violence and ostracism of your own people'.
Imagine how much more attention and clarity our various audiences would have if they weren't being introduced to a conveluded debate about some intangible unseen deity, but instead shown pictures of beatings, of documents ostracizing and encouraging violence and so on. They would be more open to pay attention, then when they ask why this is happening, we then tell of the ban of our Protector practice.
He won't have dialogue because he believes it is spirit worship and not religious. But if he is forced by the international community to answer for the human rights abuses, this will naturally set the stage for dialogue about why the abuse is taking place to begin with. Then we can explain the even if people worship spirits, he does not have the right to interfere with people's freedoms using human rights abuses as his weapon!
