Beijing forcing Tibetan students to undergo military training

Lahasa [Tibet] August 7 (ANI): Chinese authorities in the autonomous body of Tibet are forcing the school-going students to undertake military training during their vacations to indoctrinate them in the ideology of China’s ruling Communist Party, Radio Free Asia reported citing Tibetan sources.

The move is a part of Beijing’s plan to weaken cultural ties, the students are being sent to Lhasa and several other areas to attend two training camps set up in southern Tibet’s Nyingtri. “Tibetan children who usually attend Tibetan schools and monasteries during their summer and winter breaks are now left with no choice but to attend these military training programs,” Karma Tenzin, a researcher at Tibet Policy Institute based in India said.

This is China’s attempt to brainwash young Tibetans through a strategy of carrying out programs like this, this will become a threat to the Tibetan language,” Tenzin added. Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses in the monasteries and towns typically deemed “illegal associations” and teachers subject to detention and arrest, Radio Free Asia reported citing sources.

Recently, Beijing forcibly shutting down a monastery in China’s Gansu province, evicting the monks and nuns while many of them have also been detained by Beijing during this eviction. The Chinese authorities are also gearing up for increased control over Tibetan Buddhism, where monasteries are forbidden to give traditional monastic education which forms an integral part of Tibetan Buddhism.

Monks and nuns are, instead, subjected to regular “patriotic education” and other political campaigns that are fundamentally against the basic tenets of Tibetan Buddhism. Due to China’s occupation, Tibet’s environment has been destroyed, the resources have been illegally mined and transported and the rivers have been polluted. Their occupation has led the Tibetans devoid of their basic rights and the human rights situation inside Tibet continues to deteriorate and worsen each passing year under the Chinese Communist Party’s oppressive and repressive hardliner policies. (ANI)