From: Buchung K. Tsering & John Ackerley

Email: ict@igc.org

International Campaign for Tibet

1990 - 1995 Saw No Improvement in Religious Freedom

China has shifted its religious policy in Tibet to actively suppress and restrict further religious growth, according to "A Season to Purge," a new report released today by the International Campaign for Tibet, a Washington, D.C. based monitoring and advocacy organization.

This shift in policy involves measures to halt unauthorized rebuilding of monasteries destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, setting limits on the number of monks and nuns in all monasteries, enforcing restrictions on youths joining monasteries, prohibiting Tibetan Party members from practicing religion, and strengthen the control of the government and Party over each monastery through "Democratic Management Committees."

The report analyzes the structures and methods of Chinese government and Party controls over Tibet's monasteries, revealing a web of bureaucracy, regulation, police power, and controlled media to keep Tibetan Buddhism from becoming a serious challenge to China's control over Tibetan territory. The new policies, representing the harshest measures since the 1989 martial law decrees, are designed to reduce the power monasteries have in Tibet but their effect is devastating Tibet's ancient religion and culture, according to the report.

The 89 page report rebuts the contention put forth by the Chinese government, as well as the U.S. State Department and some Western scholars, that religion in Tibet is permitted so long as it is not connected to pro-independence political activity or sentiment. The report shows, in great detail, how the Chinese government is now engaged in an extensive campaign of prior restraint to limit the spread and growth of Tibetan Buddhism before it can become a viable rallying point for the Tibetan population.

The report brings to light new regulations and policy statements such as "overstaffed monasteries must liquidate their excess... "monks or nuns and that Tibetans violating religious regulations can be punished not only according to the law, but also by the "political process."

The report also reveals how the Chinese government misled the United Nations Special Rapporteur on religious intolerance during his two-day stay in Lhasa. Chinese officials represented to the Rapporteur that Tibetan Party members may practice Tibetan Buddhism and that China has no regulations prohibiting Tibetans under the age of 18 from joining monasteries. Both statements are gross misrepresentations of China's practices in Tibet.

Five years after the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) released the ground-breaking religious freedom report "Forbidden Freedoms," ICT has found no substantial improvement in any area of religious freedom. Since the publication of Forbidden Freedoms, ICT has monitored over 10 key areas of religious freedom in Tibet, and found that despite international scrutiny and constructive engagement with China, there has been no loosening of religious controls.

The report explains how China's anxiety over maintaining control in Tibet led to confrontation with the Dalai Lama over choosing the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, Tibet's second most important monk. China's brazen appraoch with the Panchen Lama is consistent with a pattern of co-opting, manipulating and dominating religious leaders in Tibet but signals a hardening of policy towards Tibetans. The Panchen Lama recognized by the Dalai Lama on May 14, 1995 is still under a house arrest, and is probably the world's youngest prisoner of conscience.

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) was established in 1988 to monitor and promote internationally recognized human rights and democratic freedoms in Tibet. ICT is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization incorporated in Washington, DC.