School-going Tibetans made to attend military-style education camps in Nyingtri

Dharmashala (Himachal Pradesh) [India], August 8 (ANI): In Tibet, children between 8 and 16 years of age are reportedly sent to new military education camps set up this year in the autonomous region’s Nyingtri city, which shares a border with Arunachal Pradesh, according to a media report.

These military-style camps are situated in an already sensitive militarised region. The centres are established to foster affection towards the communist regime in China, Tibet-focused media organisation Phayul reported.

The communist regime states that the aim of such camps is aimed at increasing “the spirit of patriotism and increase the spirit of patriotism and defending the nation, increase physical strength, inculcate mental strength and stamina, and also to increase the spirit of unity among the children,” the media outlet said quoting Chinese state media.

Children during their summer vacation from June to July are taught discipline through military drills and physical activities at the Young Tibetan Snow Hawk Military Summer Camp and Tibet Rong He Military training centre on the banks of Lake Draksum Tso, Phayul said

These camps are similar to vocational skills training institutes and enterprises in Nyingtri focused on Tibetan farmers, nomads and former political prisoners. The Phayul article cited a Free Tibet report that argues that since the 2008 Tibetan Uprising, China’s CCP has been heavily invested in using “artificial intelligence technology to boost surveillance and revamped its assimilatory ethnic policies to break connections, lineages, lifestyle and loyalties.”

China has been exercising such practices for a long time to shape the thoughts of people in a way the regime wants. In Xinjiang, the regime has been running multiple camps to shape the citizens in a pro-Beijing way. However, multiple media reports have claimed that Xinjiang camps are internment camps, not education centres as China claims.

Reports have also alleged that there are extensive human rights violations, including rape, torture and sexual abuse at the so-called re-education camps in Xinjiang. A few months ago, the US had called upon China to immediately release all arbitrarily detained people and abolish the internment camps, cease enforced sterilizations, end-all torture, and stop persecuting Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang. (ANI)