DHARAMSHALA, May 1: A new report has placed China among the “most egregious violators” of religious freedom in the world and has found that religious freedom conditions in Tibet are “worse now than at any time over the past decade.”
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom in its 2013 Annual Report released Tuesday said the Chinese government’s control of the doctrines, worship sites, and selection of religious leaders of Tibetan Buddhism, and its arrests and detentions of individuals who oppose government policy or support the Dalai Lama, particularly since the 2008 protests in Tibet, have “nurtured deep resentments among Tibetans.”
The report finds that during the past year, the Chinese government continued efforts not only to strengthen control over Tibetan Buddhism but also to chart its future development, including new regulations, new oversight bureaucracy, and the opening of a government approved Tibetan Theological Institute aimed at “conforming Tibetan Buddhism…to resist the Dalai clique’s religious infiltration… and remove the crude customs and habits that are not in line with social progress.”
The report notes that since May 2011, 106 Tibetans have staged self-immolation protests “calling for Tibetan independence and the return of the Dalai Lama, among other things.”
“Chinese authorities have not acknowledged that their policies of repression have contributed to the self-immolations, instead calling them “terrorist acts” that are orchestrated with the “instigation and support” of the Dalai Lama,” it says.
The 2013 Annual Report further observes that the Chinese government completed the establishment of a new Monastery Management Committee in February 2012, headed by Party and government officials residing in every Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) monastery with goals of ensuring that monks and nuns “observe regulations, abide Chinese laws, and build “harmony.”
The report recommends that China “release all those imprisoned, detained, or disappeared on account of their religious belief, activities, or religious freedom advocacy” and implement all UN recommendations on Tibet and Xinjiang.
It further urges China to allow visits by specific UN Special Rapporteurs and also give immediate access for international observers, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, to all detention facilities.
The USCIRF report recommends the United States “raise religious freedom concerns at all levels of the U.S.-China relationship” and renewed calls for the establishment of U.S. government presence, such as consulates, in Lhasa, Tibet and Urumqi, Xinjiang, which could monitor religious freedom and other human rights conditions.
The report further recommends the US to “offer publicly to facilitate meetings between Chinese officials and envoys of the Dalai Lama” and ensure “continued availability of funds to maintain appropriate Tibetan and Uighur language broadcasting through the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.”
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is an independent federal advisory body created by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) to monitor religious freedom abuses.
