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"Tibet is a human rights issue as well as a civil and political rights issue. But there's something else too - Tibet has a precious culture based on principles of wisdom and compassion. This culture addresses what we lack in the world today; a very real sense of inter-connectedness. We need to protect it for the Tibetan people, but also for ourselves and our children."
- Richard Gere, Chair of the Board of the International Campaign for Tibet
History In 1949, following the foundation of the Chinese Communist state, the People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet and soon overpowered its people.
Ten years later, Tibetans rose up against the Chinese occupiers. The uprising was brutally crushed and the Tibetan leader, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, who had long attempted peaceful negotiation with Mao Zedong, escaped to India, followed by more than 80,000 Tibetans.
Tens of thousands of Tibetans who remained were killed or imprisoned. Untold numbers, but at least hundreds of thousands, of Tibetans have died as a direct result of China's policies since 1949 - through starvation, torture and execution.
Human Rights Abuses Human rights conditions in Tibet remain dismal. Under the Chinese occupation, the Tibetan people are denied most rights guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights including the rights to self-determination, freedom of speech, assembly, movement, expression and travel. Signs of support for His Holiness the Dalai Lama are banned by the Chinese government.
The use of imprisonment and torture continue to be an integral part of China’s effort to suppress opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet. The average sentence of all Tibetan political prisoners in detention in 2006 is 10 years, 11 months. Torture takes place on a wide scale in prisons and detention centers throughout Tibet.
Religious Freedom Denied In 1959 the International Commission of Jurists reported to the United Nations that “the Chinese were determined to use all methods at their disposal to eliminate religious belief and to substitute Communist doctrines.” During the Cultural Revolution, the destruction of almost all of Tibet’s monasteries - more than 6,000 – was completed and virtually all religious practice was banned.
Today, Chinese regulations dictate official rules for monks according to Party policy, and Party work teams sent to monasteries carry out “patriotic re-education” characterized by denunciations of the Dalai Lama. Limits on the admission of new monks and expulsions of monks who fail or seek to avoid indoctrination on patriotism has resulted in the flight to exile in India of thousands of monks and nuns since the late 1980’s. Nuns and monks have been expelled on suspicion of political activities and, in the past, many took to the streets in dissent.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama Since the Chinese invasion of 1959, the Dalai Lama has continuously initiated a process of peaceful dialogue and negotiation with Chinese officials.
In 1979, he announced a “Middle Way Approach” to resolve the Tibetan issue in consideration of the interest of both the Tibetans and the Chinese people. For his strong stance of non-violence, the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize, joining fellow social justice pioneers including Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela.
The International Campaign for Tibet works under the guidance of the Dalai Lama’s platform and builds international support for negotiations between Tibet and China as a means of achieving autonomy and self-determination for all Tibetans. Detailed information about Tibet is available in the following fact sheets and briefing papers from ICT: |
Tibetan exile Tash Despa returns to the homeland he risked his life escaping from to carry out secret filming with the award-winning, Bafta-nominated director Jezza Neumann. At the risk to its makers of imprisonment and deportation, this Dispatches film reveals the hidden reality of life under Chinese occupation in Tibet, uncovering evidence of the 'cultural genocide' described by the Dalai Lama.
A Great Mountain Burned by Fire: China’s Crackdown in Tibet