China condemned for forcible assimilation, information control in Tibet

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Releasing its world report for 2024, covering the year 2023, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Jan 12 that in Tibet, the authorities still forcibly assimilate Tibetans. What is more, extreme information controls make it very difficult to obtain and verify information from the region.

The 740-page World Report 2024, the group’s 34th edition, reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries.

In its section on Tibet, covered under China, the group says the authorities in Tibetan areas enforce severe restrictions on the freedoms of religion, expression, movement, and assembly.

“Tibetans who speak out over issues such as mass relocation, environmental degradation, or the phasing out of the Tibetan language in primary education are met with repression,” it says.

It notes that local officials were required to educate the public to “obey the law,” and cash rewards were offered to citizens prepared to inform on others.

“Having banned content on one’s phone or merely contacting Tibetans in exile can result in detention, it says.

Citing specific instances of gross human rights abuses, the report notes that a revered monk, Geshe Phende Gyaltsen, arrested in good health by Litang county police in Mar 2022, died in police custody in Jan 2023.

Furthermore, it pointed out that in Jun 2023, a group of UN special rapporteurs requested information about the cases of six Tibetans detained for possession of photos of the exiled religious leader, the Dalai Lama, but got no response from the Chinese government.

In the section on China itself, the report says, “In both Tibet and Xinjiang, those who contact family and friends abroad, or who advocate for their culture, language, and religion, risk being treated as ‘separatists’ and have been given harsh prison sentences. Across China, the government is further tightening social controls.”

The report says this in the context of the fact that ten years into President Xi Jinping’s rule, repression has deepened across the country.

The report also referred to the situation of Tibetans living in Nepal.

Nepal, which is part of the Chinese government’s Belt and Road Initiative, “restricts free assembly and expression rights of the Tibetan community under pressure from Chinese authorities,” it says. (TR)