DHARAMSHALA, January 23: China has systematically suppressed political, cultural, religious and socio-economic rights in Tibet including nonviolent advocacy for Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama’s return and opposition to government policies in the name of combating “separatist sentiment”, Human Rights Watch said in its annual report.
‘World Report 2014’, the 24th annual review of human rights practices around the globe by the New York based rights group was made public on Tuesday. It summarizes key human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories around the world.
The report indicated that the Chinese government continues to use the repressive measures that were introduced in 2008 in its clampdown of mass uprising in Tibet. “In an apparent effort to prevent a repetition of the popular protests of 2008, the government in 2013 maintained many of the measures it introduced during its brutal crackdown on the protest movement—a massive security presence composed largely of armed police forces, sharp restrictions on the movements of Tibetans within the Tibetan plateau, increased controls on monasteries, and a ban on foreign journalists in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) unless part of a government-organized tour,” the report said.
Since 2009, 125 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in Tibet to protest against China’s occupation of Tibet and its hard-line policies.
The report further said arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, torture and ill-treatment in detention and unfair trial are common practices in Tibet under Chinese regime.
The advocacy group also highlighted the nomad resettlement and relocation policy of China which was also mentioned by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, the only Tibetan rights group of the exile Tibetans. “Since 2006, over two million Tibetans, both farmers and herders, have been involuntarily “rehoused”—through government-ordered renovation or construction of new houses—in the TAR; hundreds of thousands of nomadic herders in the eastern part of the Tibetan plateau have been relocated or settled in “New Socialist Villages”.”
