Human Rights Watch
09 Mar 2025

Today, March 10, 2025, Tibetans worldwide commemorate the 1959 uprising in Tibet.

After nearly 70 years of repressive Chinese state rule, government policies that seek to forcibly assimilate non-Han peoples in China under President Xi Jinping represent an alarming turn for the worse for Tibetans.

While the Chinese government's crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang received global attention, the slow drip of news about its intensifying repression against Tibetans has garnered less notice due to ever more intrusive and watertight policing, surveillance, and censorship in Tibetan areas.

In Tibet, there is no independent civil society, freedom of expression, association, assembly, or religion. Under the pretext of national policing campaigns such as "the anti-gang crime crackdown" and the "anti-fraud" crackdown, the Chinese government has decimated what little Tibetan civil society remained, shut down Tibetan websites that promote Tibetan language and culture, and closed privately funded schools; even those that followed the government-approved curriculum.

Tibetans are told how to live their lives: use Mandarin Chinese as the medium of instruction in schools, relocate en masse from their long-established villages to new government-built and managed settlements, silently witness their rivers being dammed to generate electricity for large-scale mining or to power regions far away in China. Any questioning of government policies, however mild, can result in arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and long-term imprisonment. 

Following the 1959 uprising, many Tibetans fled across the Himalayas. But even this perilous option has been closed off since the government increased policing of the border in 2008 and made it extremely difficult for Tibetans to obtain passports in 2012. Even phoning relatives living abroad has become dangerous for Tibetans in Tibet in recent years.

The Dalai Lama is 89 years old, and the Chinese government is poised to interfere and dictate the selection of the next Dalai Lama. The Tibetan government-in-exile and Tibetan civil society groups in the diaspora face uncertainty as the US government freezes foreign aid around the world. The Chinese government's abuses beyond its borders have silenced Tibetans in Nepal and targeted those living in Western countries.

Governments that profess support for the human rights of Tibetans should step up their assistance to Tibetan groups worldwide that document rights and report on abuses in Tibet, advocate in international forums, and seek to preserve Tibetan identity and culture.

Source: Human Rights Watch