Human Rights

(Author is a senior journalist, veteran Tibetologist and Chairman, Centre for Himalayan Asia Studies and Engagement)

The European colonizers in their colonies like America, Canada and Australia discovered a unique and effective way of overcoming resistance of the Red Indians, Aborigines and other indigenous peoples against the colonial occupiers of their respective countries.Initiated in the middle of the 19^th century, the Residential Schools system which aimed at plucking out young children from their familiesand brainwashing them till their adulthood under confines of these schools, remained in action for over a century until they could effectively knock out most elements of the original ‘barbaric’ social, cultural and religious practices from the hearts and souls of the newer generations of these societies. The job of running these schools was effectively implemented by several religious organizations of Europe which included the Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, United and Presbyterian churches. In today’s Tibet this cultural genocide is being run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through it’s a similar colonial tool called the ‘United Front Work Department’.

In February this year three independent United Nations experts pointed out that nearly one million Tibetan children have been separated from their families and are sent to residential schools run by the CCP. The experts expressed concern over the fact that in these schools these children are forced to learn in Mandarin Chinese in a curriculum which is built around Chinese culture and the CCP’s political propaganda. Later in March this year the United Nations committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights drew international community’s attention towards China’s coercive ‘boarding school system’ in Tibet. The committee underlined and expressed serious concerns over their large-scale campaign to eradicate Tibetan culture and language among the younger generation of today’s Tibet. Last year there have been widespread reports about closure of community run Tibetan schools and arrests of their volunteer organizers. These schools imparted education in Tibetan language to Tibetan children after their school hours in Chinese schools.

It is noteworthy that this campaign of ‘de-Tibetanizing’ the Tibetan people has gained special momentum since President Xi Jinping took over the power in China. Speaking at the 7^th Tibet Work Forum, the highest platform for future planning on Tibet, in August 2020 in Beijing, President Xi Jinping had openly declared, “…. Tibetan Buddhism should be guided in adapting to the socialist society and should be developed in the Chinese context.” Later during his sudden and unannounced visit to Tibet in July 2021also President Xi had called upon the CCP cadres and the Chinese administrators of Tibet to work for establishing Tibetan Buddhism with ‘Chinese Socialist Character’. The ongoing residential school system is the first step of this campaign of President Xi and the initial reports are quite annoying. Various organs of the CCP have started reporting the steps being taken through these and other Chinese schools in Tibet which show how Tibetan children as young as 6 or 8 years are the focus of the communist propaganda.

On April 19 this year the United Front released photos and report of a speech contest among children of 6 to 8 year age group at the Namgyal Sholshang Primary School at Gongkar near Lhasa. According to this report the theme of the speech contest was “Building a Consciousness of the Chinese Nation community” in order to cultivate students’ loyalty to the Communist Party. As the children expressed, by reading from printed texts, their loyalty to China as part of their belief in a better future, the banner in the backdrop read “Study and implement the Spirit of the 20^th Party Congress of Chinese Communist Party” and also “Constructing the Consciousness of the Chinese National Community”.

On May 5 this year the United Front Work Department reported of a ‘speech competition’ among Tibetan children from Tsona County near India-Tibet border along Arunachal Pradesh. According to thisreport 33 Tibetan children of 8-16 year age group participated in this competition which was organized by the Tibet Autonomous Region County Committee of the Communist Youth League and the County Comprehensive Cultural Service Centre. The report highlights ‘emotional speeches’ given in ‘vivid language’ by the children.

Last year on November 29 the ‘Tibetan.net’ which is as Tibetan language culture and news website of the CCP reported that all junior middle schools in Malho (Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai province had started imparting party ideological and political work education in keeping with the 20^th Party Congress agenda “to establish socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era”.

Yet another report of May 9 this years in the ‘Lhasa Evening News’ gave details of a group tour of 200 Tibetan middle school students to the “Memorial Hall of the Emancipation of a million Serfs in Tibet” in Lhasa. The tour was organized by the District Propaganda Department of Daze district. During their tour of the museum the children were helped to raise slogans which expressed gratitude and equated the loyalty to the Communist Party with drinking water. Giving further details of the children’s tour of the museum the report says the children declared that “Tibet has been an inseparable part of the sacred territory of the motherland since ancient times”. The children were made to denounce the rule of Dalai Lama by declaring that “old Tibet was under the rule of feudal serfdom under the banner of the monasteries and the state.”

The concluding comment of this news report of ‘Lhasa Evening News’ aptly reflects the aim of the residential school system in Tibet and the purpose of education in Tibet as a colonial tool of China as it says, “The children were left with the impression that without the CCP there would be no new socialist Tibet, not to mention of the happy life of Tibetan people today.”

UN Member States raised concerns over systematic violations of human rights by China, including in Tibet, in the ongoing 52nd UN Human Rights Council session, which is currently underway in Geneva, Switzerland.

Underscoring grave human rights situation in China and regions under its control such as Tibet, distinguished representatives from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, European Union, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States of America deplored continued violations of human rights by China. The Member States called China to abide by its obligations under international human rights law.

With regard to the deteriorating human rights situation in Tibet, Australia expressed concern over “erosion of educational, religious, cultural and linguistic rights and freedoms in Tibet”. Expressing “deep concerns” over human rights violations by China, Belgium raised the disturbing development of “compulsory boarding schools and DNA sampling” in Tibet. Delegation from Finland said “evidence-based” rights violations by China in Tibet and other regions are “concerning” and called China that “Universal human rights need to be guaranteed for all – including persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, human rights defenders, intellectuals and lawyers”.

Denmark underlined the UN reports of Tibetan children forcibly “separated from their families”, and reiterated calls on China to abide by its obligations and to work with the OHCHR.

Recalling the findings of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Switzerland urged China to immediately end violations of human rights and release all human rights defenders arbitrarily detained, particularly in Tibet.

The United Kingdom is “deeply” concerned by China’s disregard for universal human rights and urged China to “reverse oppressive policies in Tibet”. The delegation further highlighted concern over the UN recent report of “one million Tibetan children were forcibly separated from their families to assimilate them into majority Han culture”.

Reiterating “deep concern” over rights violations by China and the ongoing “genocide and crimes against humanity” by China, the United States of America urged the human rights council to “maintain focus” on atrocities committed by China in Tibet and other regions, and also called upon the High Commissioner to “address them”. Similarly, Germany, Lithuania and Sweden expressed “serious” and “deep” concern over rights violations by China, including in Tibet.

The European Union, Austria, Czech Republic, Iceland, Norway and Japan expressed growing concern over rights violations by China.

Additionally, during an interactive dialogue on the situation of human rights defenders, the UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlo said China is a “disaster when it comes to human rights defenders”. The Special Rapporteur further noted “shocking” cases of 15 human rights defenders jailed by China for longer than 10 years.

In his maiden oral update of activities of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, the High Commissioner Volker Turk announced, with regard to China, the Office has opened “channels of communication with a range of actors to follow up on a variety of human rights issues” including protection of Tibetans, Uyghurs and other groups.

The ongoing UNHRC 52nd session commenced from 27th February will be concluded on 4th April 2023.

On the 64th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising, a commemorative event was held in Rome to honor the memory of those who lost their lives in the struggle for Tibetan freedom. The event was attended by members of the Tibetan community in Italy, as well as supporters and human rights activists.

The gathering started with a minute of silence in memory of the martyrs of the Tibetan struggle, followed by speeches and cultural performances. The speakers highlighted the continuing oppression of the Tibetan people by the Chinese government and called for international support for their cause.

The Tibetan National Uprising took place on March 10, 1959, when the people of Tibet rose up against the Chinese Communist Party’s occupation of their country. The uprising was brutally suppressed by the Chinese authorities, leading to the death of thousands of Tibetans and the exile of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, and many other Tibetans.

The commemorative event in Rome aimed to raise awareness of the ongoing struggle of the Tibetan people and to call for international action to support their cause. It also served as a reminder of the sacrifices made by those who fought for Tibetan freedom and independence.

A report by human rights experts of the United Nations on the eve of the International Language Day on February 21 has unmasked the real nature of oppression on Tibetans practised by the Communist Party of China now in the form of forced assimilation of Tibetan identity into the dominant Han Chinese identity.

Interestingly, February 21 often is observed solemnly by communist-minded individuals and groups in different parts of the world, projecting the language movement in Bangladesh as a token of anti-imperialist movement.

This report by UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues Fernand de Varennes, Special Rapporteur on the right to education Farida Shaheed and Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights Alexandra Xanthaki should make them rethink about the true face of the Communist Party of China.

The report by U. N. human rights experts, released in Geneva on February 6, 2023, says about a million Tibetan children have been separated from their families by the Chinese authorities and placed in government-run boarding schools.

“We are alarmed by what appears to be a policy of forced assimilation of the Tibetan identity into the dominant Han-Chinese majority through a series of oppressive actions against Tibetan educational, religious, and linguistic institutions,”the experts say in their report.

The Chinese rulers in Tibet are using the residential schooling system as a ploy to assimilate Tibetan people culturally, religiously and linguistically with the Han identity. “We are very disturbed that in recent years the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act s a mandatory large-scale programme intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards,”the experts have said in a statement.

In these residential schools, the educational content and the environment are built around the majority Han culture, with contexts in textbooks reflecting almost solely the experiences Han students face in the course of their lives. Tibetan children are forced to complete a “compulsory education”curriculum in Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua, standard Chinese) without access to learning relevant to the Tibetan tradition and culture. These schools do not provide much study in the language, history and culture of the Tibetans.

“As a result, Tibetan children are losing their facility with their native language and the ability to communicate easily with their parents and grandparents in the Tibetan language,”leading to their assimilation with the Han Chinese identity and the erosion of their own identity.

The report of the experts indicates that the promotion of these residential schools in Tibet is a part of a Chinese conspiracy to destroy the Tibetan identity and culture. Such residential schools have mushroomed in and outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, with the large majority of Tibetan children studying in them; and their numbers are

increasing. At the national level in China, the share of students studying in boarding schools is much lower, at 20 percent.

“The increase in the number of boarding Tibetan students is achieved by the closure of rural schools in areas populated by Tibetans, and their replacement by township or county-level schools which almost exclusively use Putonghua in teaching and communication, and usually require children to board,”the experts have said in their statement. “Many of these residential schools are situated far from the family homes of the students boarding them.” According to the U.N. experts, these policies run contrary to the prohibition of discrimination and the rights to education, linguistic and cultural rights, freedom of religion and belief and other rights of the Tibetan people.

By contrast, when more than 100,000 Tibetan refugees entered India in the wake of Chinese invasion of Tibet, then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had set up a chain of Tibetan schools in areas of settlement of these refugees, fully aided by the Government of India, so that the children of these refugees could be taught their language, culture and tradition. Some of these schools are still functioning.

The communist rulers of China are keen to destroy the culture and language of the Tibetans and the Tibetan way of life because they think that is the only way Tibetans can be weaned away from their deep faith in Buddhism, observers feel. For the intolerant rulers of China, religious belief of any kind is like a red rag to a bull.

Buddhism, as scholarly articles have underscored, is inseparable from the Tibetan language, culture and way of life. Former Director Anukul Chandra Banerjee of Gangtok – based Namgyal Institute of Tibetology in the Indian state of Sikkim writes in his article titled ‘Buddhism – Its Impact on the Tibetan Life and Culture’: “Almost the whole of the Tibetan language developed for the Buddhist literature. Buddhist literary terms became the literary terms of the Tibetan language itself. Gradually the Tibetan language was transformed into a language totally based on Buddhist literary terms, Tibetanized. Today, without taking the Buddhist terms as base it would be difficult to construct even a single sentence in Tibetan. There are few literally works in Tibetan that are not influenced by Buddhist ideas.”

The influence of Buddhism on the Tibetan way of life goes back to the 7^th century when king Songtsen Gampo introduced Buddhism in Tibet. The code of law that he had formed for his country was based on the important and essential Buddhist moral disciplines. “These laws were not only meant for disciplining the physical conduct of the people but also for shaping their mental attitudes,”writes Anukul Chandra Banerjee. From the 7^th century till the middle of the present century (the 20^th century), the same law has been the law of the land in Tibet.”

It is also a part of history that king Songtsen Gampo had sent his emissary Thonmi Sambhota from Tibet to the Buddhist university of Nalanda in India to borrow a script for the Tibetan language so that the Buddhist teachings could be codified and preserved in the form of religious texts. Thus, almost the whole of the Tibetan language had developed for Buddhist literature.

Indeed, the mark of Buddhism on the Tibetan way of life is found from the birth to the death of an individual. When a child is born, his parents celebrate his birth by making

offerings to the Buddha and monks and distributing food to the poor. Lamas are invited to perform religious services in houses where a child is born. The second child of the family is usually sent to the monastery to become a monk. When death occurs in a family, a prayer service by monks for seven weeks is arranged.

When the Chinese army invaded Tibet in 1950, they found Buddhism to be the force unifying all Tibetans and the Dalai Lama was the symbol of this unity. The Chinese rulers systematically dismantled the Buddhist religion by victimizing the monks. A large number of monasteries in Tibet were completely destroyed. The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, along with a large number of Tibetans. Till recently, about 150 monks in Tibet have courted death by self-immolation in protest against the attack on their religion.

Scholars have noted the Chinese contempt for non-Chinese culture. “To the Chinese government, Tibetan Buddhism is a threat to its rule and a challenge to its goal of colonizing Tibet,”writes the website of Free Tibet, an organization of Tibetan refugees. “Undermining and eliminating the unique practices of Tibetan Buddhism is central to the policy of the Chinese government of eradicating Tibetan resistance to its rule. Every single aspect of Tibetan Buddhism is subject to intrusive state interference.”

A scholar like American anthropologist Melvyn C. Goldstein has debunked the Chinese propaganda of ruthless exploitation in the name of religion prevailing in Tibet before the Chinese invasion. His studies have found that there were in-built mechanisms in the Tibetan society under which the common people were taken care of by the aristocracy. This had lent stability to the Tibetan system, prevailing undisturbed for centuries before the Chinese invasion. Having failed to wean the Tibetan people away from the Buddhist religious faith after more than 70 years of illegal occupation of Tibet, mandarins of the CPC have floated the laughable idea of Buddhism with Chinese characteristics. The real intention behind this idea, say observers, is to interfere in the process of choice of the next Dalai Lama and foist on the Tibetan people a Dalai Lama of its own choice; the way Beijing has installed a puppet Panchen Lama on the second most important holy seat of the Tibetan Buddhist order.

A press statement,jointly issued by three Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council of United Nations has revived the ghastly memories of ethnic cleansing of Red Indians and Aborigines in North America, Latin America and Australia which was committed by the Europeans to establish their colonies. In this statement, released on 6 February this month in Geneva, the three independent experts and Rapporteurs of the HRC have come out with a shocking revelation that the Chinese government is running a chain of residential schools where about a million Tibetan children are forcibly lodged in order to wipe out their Tibetan cultural identity and to brainwash them into Chinese Han culture.

The three experts Mr. Fernand de Varennes, Ms. Farida Shaheed and Ms. Alexandra Xanthaki who are respectively Special UN Rapporteurs for minority issues, right to education and cultural rights, said in their joint statement, “We are very disturbed that in recent years the residential schools system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory large-scale programme intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards.” In their study they discovered that Tibetan children, forcibly taken away from their families are lodged permanently into specially established schools across Tibet Autonomous Region as well as in other parts of original Tibet which are now part of adjoining Chinese provinces. As already alleged repeatedly by various Tibetan groups, including the Central Tibetan Administration which was established by the deposed and exiled ruler of Tibet Dalai Lama, the education in Tibetan language has been banned across Tibet and the education medium has been changed exclusively to Mandarin Chinese. There have been many cases where community schools, run by Tibetan volunteers to impart Tibetan language teaching to Tibetan children and youths outside the Chinese run schools are shut down, razed and the teachers were sent to jail.

In newly established special schools which are run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the children are not allowed to visit their families and are punished for talking to each other in Tibetan language. Commenting on this statement of UNHRC experts, GonpoDhundup, President of Tibetan Youth Congress said to this author, “President Xi Jinping has not only closed Tibetan language schools across Tibet but his government has started a new movement of snatching away Tibetan children as young as four and five years from their parents and pushing them into residential Chinese language schools. In the name of education these little kids are being subjected to communist brainwashing and loyalty to the CCP”.

It is interesting to note that the campaign of using education to convert Tibetan children into ‘patriotic’ Chinese citizens has gained momentum following the sudden and unannounced visit of President Xi to Tibet in July 2021. During his

visit to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, President Xi had addressed a special gathering of the cadres of CCP and the Chinese administrators of Tibet in which he had called upon them to work for establishing Tibetan Buddhism with ‘Chinese Socialist Character’. The statement of the UNHRC Rapporteurs has referred to the directivesof China’s Central Conference on Ethnic Affairs which was issued in August 2021 soon after Xi’s above mentioned call in Tibet. According to this statement the Conference had asked all ethnic groups of China to ensure that “interests of the Chinese nation were above all else.”China’s ongoing campaign of confining millions of Uygur Muslims of Xinjiang into a vast range of concentration camps across the occupied region is also aimed at eliminating Islam and Uyighur national values from the minds of population in order to mold them into a uniform Chinese socialist identity.

The current report of the UNHRC Rapporteurs reflects a big contradiction between the established behavior patterns of the Human Rights Council which has been repeatedly voting against even a discussion about the serious human rights situation in China and its colonies like Tibet, Xinjiang and Southern Mongolia. Interestingly, almost all Islamic countries including Qatar, Pakistan and Indonesia have been voting every time to protect China from scrutiny of its actions against the Muslim population of Xinjiang. Last year in October a similar resolution was defeated by thin margins of 17 to 19 and abstention by 11 countries. The Amnesty International had expressed its dismay at this voting saying, “Today’s vote protects the perpetrators of human rights violations rather than the victims – a dismaying result that puts the UN’s main human rights body in the farcical position of ignoring the findings of the UN’s own human rights office.” The current findings of the UN HRC Rapporteurs may or may not affect the next voting in the Council on this subject. But these observations have revived the ghastly memories of 19^th Century when besides mass shootings of the Read Indians of America and Aborigines in Australia, the white settlers from colonial Britain, France, Germany and Holland etc. had extensively used the Christian Church to run residential schools for ethnic cleansing. In these schools the local children were brainwashed, sexually exploited and even killed to wipe out their original cultural identity and to convert them into obedient Christian subjects of the white masters. President Xi Jinping’s currently ongoing system of residential CCP schools and concentration camps in Xinjiang to convert the locals colonial subjects into a uniform population with ‘Chinese Socialist Character’ is the modern version of the cultural genocide of 19^th century and a challenge to the collective world conscience.

On Friday, Tibetan activists in Dharamshala organised demonstrations against China’s strategy of mass DNA collecting and called for an end to the region’s discrimination against Tibetans. 

The use of DNA samples from Tibetan children as young as five years old by China to bolster its programme of mass surveillance using Thermo Fisher kits alarmed Tibetan NGOs protesting during the demonstrations, according to Tibet Rights Collective.

While speaking to ANI, the President of the National Democratic Party of Tibet (NDPT) said, “Today we, the four Tibetan major non-government organisations of Tibet are here. We have about 120 NGOs all around the world organising different actions, considering today is the global week of action regarding DNA collection inside Tibet.”

As part of the Global Week of Action, the NDPT leader stated that the policy of mass DNA collection introduced by the Chinese government is how the country is building a database of DNA to surveil the Tibetan people.

“With this DNA we fear that China is right now building a database of DNA so it surely gives China unfettered power to yet commit more human rights violations against Tibetans, this will also help China in the surveillance of Tibetan people,” he added.

Tibetan non-governmental organisations, such as Students for a Free Tibet, International Tibet Network, Tibetan Women’s Association, Tibetan Youth Congress, National Democratic Party of Tibet, Free Tibet, Chushi Gandruk, and Tibetan National Congress, among others, have called for Thermo Fisher to conduct a thorough investigation into their work under the law and fight for the human rights of Tibetans in Tibet during a global week of action from January 30 to February 5, according to Tibet Rights Collective.

“Today, our major issue is Thermo Fisher Scientific, a US products company. China has been using this product since 2012. They are using this product as a DNA production method. Till now, reports have shown that 1.2 million DNA samples have been collected without their consent, Since 1949, there have been no basic human rights in Tibet,” the Joint secretary of the Central Tibetan women’s Association (CTWA) told ANI.

Today these four organisations are here, to request and urge international bodies and non-governmental organisations to investigate more on Thermo Fisher Scientific and how its product has been used, she said.

Activists are leading a global protest against the Chinese government’s violation of Tibetans’ human rights in Tibet and at Chinese embassies across the world. 

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, Tibet has been subject to Chinese occupation and repression. 

Even if you are personally far from Beijing’s totalitarian authority, it was well known among Tibetans that if you have relatives or connections in Tibet, you must be apolitical. Due to your acts, which occurred outside of Beijing’s purview, your family members were promptly detained, threatened, and even sentenced, according to Tibet Press.

China has replaced a 2016 cyber law in Tibet with effect from Feb 1 to give more power to impose tougher punishments for anyone deemed to be creating “public disorder by engaging in separatist acts,” reported the Tibetan service of rfa.org Jan 1.

The report said the new law was designed to strengthen digital surveillance and censorship in the region, with new requirements allowing authorities to target Tibetans for online activity deemed critical of Chinese rule in the region.

However, the law does not specify the type of violations that would get individual Tibetans in trouble with authorities, the report said, thereby giving Chinese police arbitrary power to target anyone having cultural, social, or religious conversations related to Tibet.

“[The law] will leave room for Chinese authorities to arrest and detain them on simple but also uncertain charges,” Sangay Kyab, described as a researcher at the Tibetan Center for Human Rights, has said.

The report cited Article 11 of the new law as saying anyone seen to be posing a threat to national security and public interest, deemed to be anti-socialist, or seen as engaging in separatism by maintaining any association with Tibetan independence groups or individuals will face punishment.

Also seen as liable to be punished are those who would share related photos, speeches, campaigns, books or videos, or who support these activities.