According to the most recent classification by the US-based human rights organization Freedom House, Tibet is one of the least free nations or areas in the world, tied for last place with South Sudan and Syria.
The organization stated in its yearly Freedom in the World 2023 report that the number of nations receiving a score of 0 for freedom of speech increased during the year from 14 to 33, and that during 2022, media freedom was under attack in at least 157 countries and regions.
Scores on a nation’s or region’s political rights and civil freedoms are part of Freedom House’s worldwide freedom exams.
Tibet received a score of minus 2 for political rights and minus 3 for civil freedoms out of a potential 40.
As a result, Tibet received a worldwide freedom ranking of just 1 out of 100. Tibet has fallen to the basement of the standings for a third year running.
The total result for South Sudan and Syria is the same, with each country receiving a score of -3 for political rights and -4 for civil freedoms.
While both Tibetans and people of Chinese ancestry were noted in the report to lack fundamental rights in Tibet, “the authorities are especially rigorous in suppressing any signs of dissent among Tibetans, including manifestations of Tibetan religious beliefs and cultural identity,” according to the report.
According to the report, key issues that dominated the rights situation in Tibet in 2022 included China using a Covid-19 outbreak to step up its repression of Tibetans and putting thousands of people in overcrowded, filthy facilities because the government wouldn’t separate the healthy from the sick. According to the story, the situation was so terrible that at least five Tibetans committed suicide by leaping off domestic structures or collective isolation locations.
The survey report also made reference to a Citizen Lab report, an interdisciplinary lab housed at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto in Canada, which claimed that China may have collected DNA samples from up to one-third of the population of the Tibet Autonomous Region, which encompasses most of western Tibet, over a six-year period.
Global liberties, according to Freedom House, decreased for the 17th year in a row in 2022 as the fight for democracy came to a breaking point and the right to free speech was restricted in nations like Russia and Iran.
