On 13 August at the United Nations Committee to Eliminate Racial Discrimination, the Chinese government flatly denied its human rights violations in Tibet and other areas of the People’s Republic of China, instead painting a rosy picture of personal freedoms that left the body of independent human rights experts in disbelief.
As the Chinese government released a new white paper claiming it supports “ecological conservation” in Tibet, state media announced that China has stepped up production of bottled water from Tibet’s endangered glaciers, and news emerged of more major hydropower schemes in central Tibet, financed by the state.
On 7 August 2018, ICT Germany’s Executive Director Kai Müller delivered a statement at the UN Committee to Eliminate Racial Discrimination (CERD) session in Geneva.
The United Nations committee that fights racism should press China to abolish laws and policies that discriminate against Tibetans, the International Campaign for Tibet said ahead of the Chinese government’s presentation to the committee on August 10.
The Tibet Brief is an ICT publication for policy-makers, providing concise information and perspectives on the political, economic and human rights situation in Tibet. In this edition: New ICT report reveals China’s strategies of weaponizing access to Tibet; EU and China hold their annual Human Rights Dialogue and Summit; ICT President raises Tibet with UN and EU officials; China forces young Tibetan monks out of monastery; Mass migration program highlights contested nomads’ resettlement policies in Tibet; ‘Destruction, commercialization, fake replicas’: new report on Lhasa as UNESCO World Heritage Committee meets; Chinese dissident’s widow Liu Xia allowed to leave China after years of house arrest; Sweden condemns Tibetan for espionage, highlighting pressures on exile communities (…)
The former home of the parents of the Dalai Lama, one of the largest and most important of the few remaining historic buildings in Lhasa, has been demolished and a new concrete structure is being built in its place.
China’s ban on religious activities for schoolchildren in Tibet grossly violates international human rights law—as well as China’s own legal requirements—and must immediately be put to an end.
Young Tibetan monks were compelled to leave one of the biggest monasteries in the eastern Tibetan area of Kham, Sershul, as part of a drive by the Chinese government to replace monastic education with secular schooling that emphasizes Communist Party propaganda.
On the eve of the 36th EU-China Human Rights Dialogue and the 20th EU-China Summit, both scheduled to take place in July 2018, the International Campaign for Tibet calls on the European Union to use these meetings to press China for concrete improvements in the human rights situation in Tibet.
China has announced the displacement of more than 1,000 Tibetans from a nature reserve in northern Tibet to a settlement site in Lhasa, describing it as the first “high-altitude ecological migration”.