Chinese govt destroying Tibetan identity, language and culture, says UN report

A report by human rights experts of the United Nations revealed that Tibetans are facing persecution by the Chinese government in the form of forced assimilation of Tibetan identity into the dominant Han Chinese identity, reported ANI citing Tibetan Press.

The report that was released on February 6, 2023, in Geneva talked about a million Tibetan children who were separated from their families by the Chinese government and placed in government-run boarding schools.

The experts said that they were alarmed by what appears to be a policy of forced assimilation of the Tibetan identity into the dominant Han-Chinese majority through a series of oppressive actions against Tibetan educational and linguistic institutions.

Is the Chinese govt using the 'residential schooling system' to destroy Tibetan identity, language, and culture?

It is pertinent to note that the Chinese authorities in Tibet are using the residential schooling system as a ploy to assimilate Tibetan people culturally, religiously, and linguistically with the Han identity. "We are very disturbed that in recent years the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory, large-scale programme intended to assimilate Tibetans into the majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards," said the experts in a statement.

Also, the Tibetan children are forced to complete a "compulsory education curriculum in Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua, standard Chinese) without allowing them to learn relevant Tibetan traditions and culture. These schools do not provide education to Tibetan students in learning the history and culture of Tibet, and as a result, Tibetan children are losing fluency in their own language and the ability to communicate with their parents in their own language.

The experts in the report indicated that by promoting these residential schools in Tibet, the Chinese authorities are trying to destroy Tibetan identity and culture. These types of schools have increased in and outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region, with the large majority of Tibetan children studying in them, and their number is increasing. The report also claimed that the Chinese government is doing this to destroy the culture and language of the Tibetans and the Tibetan way of life, only to separate them from their belief in Buddhism.

Image: ANI/ Representative