China's ‘Colonial' Schools Erasing Tibet Culture: Rights Group
The Chinese government is reportedly seeking to tighten its control over Tibet by targeting its youngest residents.
At "colonial boarding schools across the regions, students are increasingly denied access to their native language and culture—with many subjected to neglect and physical abuse," according to a report released Thursday by the U.S.-based advocacy group Tibet Action Institute.
The People's Republic of China seized control of Tibet—which it refers to as Xizang—in 1950, claiming the region needed to be "liberated" from its theocratic and feudal system.
Major uprisings followed in 1959, the late 1980s, and again in 2008, each prompting violent crackdowns by Chinese forces. Critics say Tibet—birthplace of the Dalai Lama—has effectively become a police state, with international observers largely shut out except during tightly managed government tours.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the United Nations Human Rights Office with emailed requests for comment.
Observers say the crackdown has only intensified since Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012.
This tightening of control has extended beyond public spaces into the classroom.
Tibet's education system is now predominantly residential, with as many as 900,000 children between the ages of 6 and 18 estimated to be enrolled in state-run boarding schools, the group estimates. At least 100,000 children as young as 4 have been placed in boarding preschool.
These most vulnerable of Tibetans are being subjected to an intense state-directed Sinicization campaign "in order to cement the transformation of Tibetan children's identity and allegiance," according to a new report by the U.S.-based Tibet Action Institute, which based its findings on interviews with Tibetans who escaped to India, and secret communications with individuals still living in the region.
While separated from their families, students receive an education delivered exclusively in Chinese and focused on Chinese history, cultural heritage and national identity.
"But when these children return home, they cannot speak in Tibetan with their family members. They only communicate in Chinese and it becomes difficult at home. The government aims to change these Tibetan children to Chinese by removing Tibetan identity," the report quoted one source as saying.
The report describes the system as a violation of both domestic and international law.
It also claims knowledge of "numerous cases of abuse and negligence." One parent cited "poor" food quality, while a former student now living in exile said students were beaten if their dormitories were found to be not clean enough during inspections.
Gyal Lo, an activist and educational sociologist with the Tibet Action Institute, said in the press release accompanying the report: "China's colonial boarding schools are meant to indoctrinate, not educate Tibetan children. Chinese authorities are deliberately taking our children away and disconnecting them from their roots.
"Within a generation our language and culture could be lost, all because the Chinese government sees Tibetan identity as a threat to its control of our nation."
Guo Jiakun, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said on April 1 during a regular press conference: "We reject groundless vilification of Xizang's human rights, and religious and cultural cause, and oppose foreign officials' interference and sabotage in the name of performing their duties in Xizang."
The Tibet Action Institute called on the United Nations and foreign governments to demand China "immediately conduct a public investigation into the alleged abuses, deaths, and mental health concerns at Tibetan boarding schools, to abolish the coercive system of boarding schools and preschools, and to enable Tibetan children to access high-quality mother tongue education while living at home."
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