China: Maas should demand free access to Tibet

The Society for Threatened Peoples has asked Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to use the meeting of the UN Human Rights Council (starting in Geneva on February 25) to address the human rights situation in Tibet and Xinjiang – and to demand free access to the regions. "China's authorities are afraid of the truth. Sixty years after the beginning of the uprising in Tibet, China's government is doing everything it can to cover up the dramatic human rights situation. In order to keep the actual situation a secret, foreigners will not be allowed to visit Tibet until April 1st. Further, independent observers are not allowed to speak to Tibetan victims of state repression," criticized Ulrich Delius, the STP's director, in Göttingen on Wednesday.

"China's blockade of travel to Tibet is typical of Beijing's dealings with foreign journalists, whose working conditions in the People's Republic are becoming worse and worse." According to a study published by the Foreign Correspondent's Club of China (FCCC) in January 2019, the overall situation for Chinese Journalists in China has become significantly worse in 2018. Sixty-six percent of the interviewed journalists expressed concerns that Chinese state security was monitoring their offices and private homes, and 91 percent of respondents were sure that their mobile phones were being monitored.

A total number of 155 Tibetans have burned themselves in protest against the Chinese repressions since 2009. "The state media don't inform the Chinese people about these acts of desperation," Delius criticized. The arbitrary arrests of Tibetan human rights activists and the criminalization of relatives of suicide victims are being tabooed. Thus, it is all the more important for foreign journalists to report on the situation in Tibet.

In December 2018, the Chinese authorities decided that the Tibetan monks in the Qinghai region should no longer teach the Tibetan language in their monasteries – meaning that the Chinese government breached the constitutional right to learn Tibetan. There are less and less schools that dare to teach the Tibetan language, and anyone who dares to protest must fear imprisonment. For example, the Tibetan businessman Tashi Wangchuk has been in jail for three years for criticizing the ban on lessons in Tibetan in a New York Times video and article. His imprisonment will end in 2021.

Header image: Roel Wijnants via Flickr