To Honourable G7 Leaders, 

Re: Urgent action against China’s crackdown in Tibet

We, a coalition of over 146 Tibet-related rights groups and over 17,400 Tibet supporters, are writing to you ahead of the G7 Leaders Summit in Italy on 13-15 June 2024, urging you to take firm joint action concerning China’s relentless crackdown on Tibet and attempts to eradicate Tibetans’ distinct identity. 

Over the past 18 months alone, multiple UN human rights bodies have raised the alarm at the escalation of human rights violations in Tibet, including the colonial boarding school system; an extensive labour transfer programme; the relocation of millions of rural Tibetans from their lands; the imprisonment of Tibetan environmental defenders; and increased restrictions on the provision of Tibetan-language education. Tibetans who criticise or protest these policies or even peacefully express their Tibetan identity continue to face arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, and death in custody at the hands of the Chinese state. 

In February 2024, Freedom House gave Tibet a global freedom score of zero out of a hundred; an explicit charge of the worsening situation in occupied Tibet under China’s failed policies and another clear sign that global leaders must take stronger action.

Occupied for over seven decades, China’s rule in Tibet is one of the last remnants of 20th-century colonialism. This is epitomised by a vast and alarming system of colonial boarding schools and preschools housing close to one million Tibetan children; this equates to more than 80 percent of all Tibetan children from ages 6 to 18 – together with at least 100,000 four and five-year-olds – now estimated to be living in Chinese state-run boarding schools and boarding preschools across Tibet.

 By intentionally uprooting Tibetan children from their families and culture, making them live in state-run boarding schools, the Chinese authorities are using one of the most heinous tools of colonisation to attack Tibetan identity. While China claims to be educating Tibetan children, the world knows what it looks like when children are pushed into boarding schools run by a state that wants to wipe out their culture, including high levels of alienation, loss of identity, and intergenerational trauma.

China’s interference in Tibet’s freedom of religion is also a call for much concern. The Chinese government imposes tight controls on Tibetan Buddhism, and monks and nuns who try to observe their faith outside of these narrow confines face extreme repression. The Chinese government’s control of freedom of religion extends to matters of reincarnation, with the CCP asserting that the Party, rather than Tibetan Buddhists themselves, will determine the identity of the next Dalai Lama. Meanwhile, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the Panchen Lama and the world’s youngest political prisoner when he was abducted in 1995 as a six-year-old, still remains missing after nearly 30 years.

Furthermore, China’s megadevelopment plans across the Tibetan plateau pose wide-scale and significant threats to the fragile environment and ancient and culturally important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. Recent protests by Tibetans in Tibet opposed to the construction of a large hydropower dam – that would submerge several entire villages and displace thousands of Tibetans whose livelihoods have flourished alongside the river for many generations – led to a major crackdown against peaceful protesters with Chinese police arresting hundreds of residents, including monks from local monasteries who had been protesting.

Protests on this scale in occupied Tibet are rare due to the Chinese government’s extreme punishment.

We welcome that a number of your governments raised the grave situation in Tibet during China’s Fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in January 2024, but more is needed. China’s flagrant disregard for fundamental human rights and its violent and systematic assault on the Tibetan people must be condemned by global leaders and we urge that G7 leaders openly address the attack on Tibet with a robust joint statement of concern. We urge that you:

1. Echo the UN human rights experts recommendations and call on China to immediately abolish the coercive colonial boarding schools for Tibetan children; as raised by multiple G7 States at China’s Fourth UPR in January 2024. 
2. Call for an end to all State interference in the selection and installation of Tibetan Buddhist leaders, including any future reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, which must be determined solely by the Tibetan people, following international human rights law. Tibetan people’s right to freedom of religion and belief was raised by G7 states; France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and United States at China’s Fourth UPR in January 2024.
3. Press China to immediately stop all megadevelopment projects in occupied Tibet until Tibetans are given the right to free, prior, and informed consent to decide upon the future of projects affecting Tibetan culture, religion, and the environment; and to urgently end the crackdown in Dege and unconditionally release all detained Tibetans. 

Together your governments are uniquely positioned to exercise strong and direct influence on China’s leadership and we call on you to take this key multilateral opportunity to address the existential threats to Tibetans’ identity and culture.

We look forward to your urgent response on this request.

Signed,                    

DOWNLOAD JOINT LETTER PDF HERE

On behalf of: 

Annex: State Recommendations at China’s Fourth UPR in January 2024

Canada:

1. Implement the recommendations set out by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and end all coercive measures imposed on Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other ethnic minorities, including forced labour, coercive labour transfers, forced sterilisations, and mandatory residential schools.
2. Grant the UN, including the OHCHR and special procedures, full and unfettered access to all regions of China, including Tibet and Xinjiang.

France:

1. Guarantee the protection of freedom of religion, particularly for Uyghur and Tibetan people

Germany:

1. Respect the rights of persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, including in Xinjiang and Tibet 

Japan:

1. Protect the rights of minorities, including the Tibetans and Uighurs, including their rights to enjoy their cultural and religious practices as recommended by the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

United Kingdom:

1. Cease the persecution and arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and Tibetans, and allow genuine freedom of religion or belief and cultural expression without fear of surveillance, torture, forced labour, or sexual violence, and implement OHCHR recommendations on Xinjiang.

United States Of America:

1. Cease harassment, surveillance, and threats against individuals abroad and in China, including Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong.
   2. Cease discrimination against individuals’ culture, language, religion or belief, end forcible assimilation policies, including boarding schools, in Tibet and Xinjiang.
   3. Permit the UN unhindered and meaningful access, particularly in Xinjiang and Tibet