The Education Department of China has ordered parents of children in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, not to engage their children in any religious activities or to take their children to faraway places during the current long winter holiday, or they will face the consequences, reports the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT)*.
Parents of children at Lhasa Chengguan Haicheng Elementary School have been sent an official announcement from the Education Department. Parents have been told to follow the seven-point guidelines which relate to school projects, healthcare and forbidden behaviours, including the ban on engaging in religious activities.
The seventh point states, “Students are not allowed to participate in any form of religious activity during the break, and in principle long-distance travel with students is not allowed. In the event of an accident, all consequences are the responsibility of the parents”.
“By banning schoolchildren from religious activities, Chinese authorities are infringing upon basic principles of freedom of religion, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – which China agreed to — and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which China ratified in 1992,” said ICT in a statement.
ICT reported that the prohibition of children’s participation in religious activities in Tibet was also announced during summer and winter holidays in 2018 and 2019. A separate report by Radio Free Asia in May 2018 said that Chinese authorities in Tibet’s Chamdo city ordered children and their parents to avoid attending religious festivities during the Buddhist holy month of Saga Dawa, with warnings of unspecified punishments for people who did not comply.
A separate report, Tibetan Buddhist Temples Monitored, Monks Controlled, was published on bitterwinter.org, a magazine that focuses on religious liberty and human rights in China. This states that China has intensified its efforts to curb the development of Tibetan Buddhism through surveillance and indoctrination. It mentioned that over 200 HD surveillance cameras were installed in Youning Temple, a 400-year-old renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple in Huzhu Tu County in Kham [Ch:Qinghai] province. Notices saying “You are in a surveillance area” have been displayed throughout the place of worship, the report stated.
The article added that the government spares no money or effort to teach Tibetan monks Han culture and indoctrinate them with patrotism and other propaganda. “Now Uighurs and Tibetans are persecuted, are being ‘hanified’ gradually. The CCP aims at stopping the development of Tibetan culture and religion, cutting them at the root,” said a monk to bitterwinter.
*The International Campaign for Tibet works worldwide to help Tibetans in their peaceful struggle for democracy and human rights, and seeks to preserve Tibet’s ancient culture of wisdom.
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