(TibetanReview.net, Apr24’24) —While highlighting China’s continued genocidal crimes against the predominantly Uyghur Muslims and others in East Turkestan (Xinjiang), the US State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released Apr 22, also cited a long list of human rights abuses against the Tibetan people enduring Chinese rule. The report underscores the need to resolve Tibet’s status, said Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) Apr 23. China has condemned the report, accusing the US of slandering it.
The report shows that China violated Tibetans’ human rights on a massive scale last year. These included torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, censorship, transnational repression, restrictions on religious freedom, denial of democratic elections and much more, said ICT.
The catena of violations highlighted by the report, ICT said, included the following:
– Forcing Tibetan Buddhist monks to sign documents denouncing the Dalai Lama, their exiled spiritual leader
– Disappearing and torturing Tibetan political prisoners
– Requiring job applicants to “align ideologically, politically, and in action with the [Chinese Communist Party] Central Committee”
– Severely restricting Tibetans’ travel and freedom of movement
– Harassing and denying opportunities to the families of Tibetan self-immolators
– Depriving Tibetans of internet freedom, freedom of the press, the right to peacefully assemble and the right to change their government through free and fair elections
– Requiring monasteries to incorporate CCP members into their administrative systems. These members were tasked with overseeing various aspects, including monastic admissions, education, security and finances
– Criminalizing speech as spreading information “damaging to ethnic unity,” “subverting state power,” “undermining national unity” and “damaging the honor and interests of the state.”
Besides, the report shows “that China is severely violating the human rights of the Tibetan people all across the globe,” according to ICT President Tencho Gyatso. “Even inside the United States, China is discriminating against Tibetan Americans. In Tibet, China’s abuses are shocking.”
The report was released by Secretary of Antony Blinken ahead of his Apr 24-26 travel to China.
China condemned the report, calling it politically biased and ideological prejudiced. The human rights situation in China is best judged by the Chinese people, its official globaltimes.cn Apr 23 cited Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin as saying during his press briefing on Apr 23.
The US, despite having multiple affairs to cooperate and coordinate with China, is slandering the country simultaneously, the report claimed.
On the other hand, ICT says the report vindicates the ongoing move for the final passage of the Resolve Tibet Act bill which now awaits full Senate vote before it could be signed into law by President Joe Biden. The bill rejects China’s claim that the historically and ethnographically defined Tibet has been part of China since ancient times; that its legal status therefore needs to be resolved through negotiations with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, and the democratically elected Tibetan leadership; and that the US should actively involve itself to help realize such a settlement.