With the world’s attention diverted towards the events in Ukraine, China is continuing its repression of the Tibetan culture and identity, even introducing more draconian methods to accomplish the task, a media report said on Saturday.
A new code of conduct for members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Tibet explicitly forbids party members from all forms of religiosity in both public and private life. The six-point code of conduct is the first party regulation that clearly and comprehensively details the specific types of religiosity forbidden for party members in Tibet, The Hong Kong Post reported.
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The new regulation forbids wearing rosary beads or religious imagery, forwarding or liking religious materials online and circumambulating mountains and lakes. Party members are also required to take on an active role to propagate the party’s anti-religion stance by advising relatives to downplay their religious consciousness, not set up altars or hang religious imagery in homes, and seek party approval before inviting religious personnel to conduct rituals for customary occasions such as weddings and funerals, the report said.Taking the cultural oppression into people’s homes, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has forced and even coerced the Tibetan people to place Xi Jinping’s picture into the Tibetan Buddhist altars, the report further said.
The development comes amid other measures by the Chinese administration. A new regulation called ‘Measures on the Administration of Internet Religious Informative Services’ which came into effect on March 1 bans all foreign organizations and individuals from spreading religious content online in China and Tibet except those who have acquired government licenses.
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At the same time, China has also started to demolish structures symbolizing Tibetan Buddhism including old statues and monasteries with three such demolitions taking place since December last year as per reports.
The actions of the Chinese authorities in Tibet over the past few months have drawn heavy criticism from Tibetan religious leaders and the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).In January, Ling Rimpoche (reincarnation of the Dalai Lama’s teacher) rebuked China for the destruction of Tibetan Buddhist literature and Buddhist identity including the destruction of the Dalai Lama’s palace, a huge number of monasteries and Buddha statues of historical and religious value as well as systematically reducing the Tibetans to a state of destitution in their own country. He further emphasized that the Chinese are destroying Buddhism in order to destroy the identity of the Tibetans.
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Earlier in November last year, Sikyong Penpa Tsering of the Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamshala accused China of implementing a ‘One nation, one party, one language, one culture’ policy in occupied Tibet and said that Tibetans as a people and culture was being subjected to a slow death, the report said.
In the same month, US President Biden had raised concerns about China’s practices in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong with Xi Jinping during an online discussion.
