Cultural repression in Tibet


The use of the term "cultural genocide" has been used in reference to the situation in Tibet since at least the 1980s. Its first recorded use in the Tibetan context appears to be a statement by French criminal lawyer and former Justice Minister Robert Badinter, who made the remark while appearing with the Dalai Lama on the French television program ''Apostrophes.''

Cultural genocide in the context of indigenous peoples

The term cultural genocide has been debated in academic, legal, and human rights circles since the mid-20th century. In the context of indigenous peoples, the term gained attention during the drafting of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the 1990s. A 1994 draft of Article 7 explicitly referenced cultural genocide, describing actions that aim to deprive indigenous communities of their integrity, identity, or traditional practices. These included forced assimilation, land dispossession, and suppression of language and religion.
However, the term "cultural genocide" was ultimately omitted from the final version of the declaration, adopted by the United Nations in 2007, due to disagreements among member states regarding its scope and legal implications. While the final declaration affirms indigenous peoples’ rights to maintain their cultures, languages, and traditions, it avoids the term itself, reflecting the ongoing controversy around its legal definition and application.
Advocacy groups and some scholars have drawn parallels between the conditions in Tibet and the forms of cultural repression described in early drafts of the declaration. They argue that policies affecting language use, religious practice, and land rights in Tibet may fall within the broader understanding of cultural suppression. These concerns are often framed within the language of international treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of which affirm the rights of minority and Indigenous groups.

Other UN treaties

Those individuals advocating for Tibetan people and culture have argued that China's policies in Tibet have violated multiple UN treaties, including:
China has consistently dismissed calls from UN Special Rapporteurs on Education, Cultural Rights, and Racism to respect the linguistic rights of the Tibetan people.
These breaches have been repeatedly condemned by UN bodies, such as the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, and various special mechanisms of the UN Human Rights Council.

Systematic suppression of Tibetan culture

Attacks on religion

China's assault on Tibetan religion began in the 1950s with the widespread destruction of temples, monasteries, and religious artefacts. Although some have been rebuilt since the 1980s, much of Tibet's cultural heritage and lineage remain lost and irreplaceable, diminishing Buddhist institutions and scholarship due to the disruption of Dharma transmission across generations and the absence of lineage holders. In an interview with the 17th Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje, by the International Campaign for Tibet in 2002, he explained:
The government continues to undermine Tibetan Buddhism through strict regulations, discouraging religious practices, enforcing patriotic education and manipulating internal divisions. Tactics include rhetorical attacks, public humiliation, detention, imprisonment, torture, collective punishment, and even killing of religious leaders and adherents. In 1987, the reforms taking place in both China and Tibet coincided with a wave of protests in Lhasa. That year, demonstrations initially began peacefully but quickly escalated after authorities violently attacked the monks who led them. Larger and more prolonged protests erupted in Lhasa in 1988 and 1989, both of which were met with severe repression. On March 5, 1988, police launched a brutal assault on a group of monks inside the Jokhang Temple, beating several to death and arresting others. Reports of torture in detention included repeated beatings, electric shocks, suspension from ropes, exposure to extreme cold, sleep deprivation, and attacks by dogs, all accompanied by relentless interrogations and political indoctrination. Tibetan Buddhist nuns arrested for protesting endured some of the most extreme brutality.
Since the late 1990s, the Chinese Communist Party has reportedly formalized its surveillance of Tibetan Buddhism. According to a 2025 report, the Tibet Autonomous Region had approximately 1,700 officially registered monasteries and around 46,000 monks and nuns for the effort.
In March 2008, Labrang Jigme, a monk of Labrang Monastery, was abducted by security forces and endured six months of psychological torture while in detention. He commented in a video:
In October 2025, Chinese authorities conducted a four-day raid in Sangchu County, Gansu, targeting Labrang Tashi Khyil Monastery and nearby Tibetan villages. The operation involved door-to-door searches and confiscated large quantities of Dalai Lama photographs, deemed illegal by local and central orders. Residents were intimidated into surrendering images. Communications were cut off from October 19, limiting information on the raid's aftermath.

Dispossession of lands, territories or resources

Chinese policies have targeted Tibetan pastoralists through forced sedentarization, environmental regulations, and economic development strategies that have displaced them from their lands and traditional livelihoods. These measures, combined with mass in-migration of non-Tibetans and reliance on extractive industries, have marginalized Tibetans, making them a cultural and demographic minority in their own region. Additionally, these policies have severely impacted the Tibetan ecosystem, with broader ecological consequences for Asia. While economic benefits have primarily gone to non-Tibetans, Tibetans have suffered significant cultural and environmental losses. The mandated settlement has severed Tibetan nomads' deep connection with their animals and environment, rendering their generational knowledge of animal and grassland management obsolete.
A 2007 Human Rights Watch report on the permanent settlement of nomads in Tibet highlights the impact of this policy on a way of life practiced on the Tibetan Plateau. As one Tibetan in 2004 described the situation:
With limited job prospects, many nomads turn to collecting and selling yartsa gunbu, a highly valued ingredient in Chinese traditional medicine that commands a steep market price. There have also been instances of violent, even deadly, clashes over the trade of the fungus, as its scarcity increases and more people depend on it for their livelihood. In one incident in July 2007, reports indicate that eight people were shot and killed, while 50 others were injured in such a conflict.

Attacks on Tibetan intellectual and non-religious cultural life

The Chinese party-state has enforced a series of policies that undermine the intellectual and non-religious cultural life of Tibetans. These include restricting linguistic rights by preventing the development and use of the Tibetan language in commerce, education, and administration within Tibetan areas; imposing Chinese as the primary language and enforcing an educational curriculum that serves state interests while denying Tibetan children opportunities for cultural development and expression. Any recognition of Tibetan culture by the party-state is largely driven by commercial or political interests.
The Gongmeng report specifically emphasized the threat to the Tibetan language as a major source of frustration in Tibet:
The International Commission of Jurists wrote in its 1997 report on Tibet:
According to the United Nations Report released in Geneva on February 6, 2023, China is destroying Tibetan identity, language and culture. For example, a million Tibetan children have been forced to separate from their families and placed in government-run Chinese schools in an attempt by the Chinese authorities to assimilate their Tibetan identity into the dominant Han Chinese identity. In these schools, children are forced to follow a “Chinese” educational curriculum without access to any Tibetan tradition, history, culture and language. As a result, Tibetan children are slowly losing their ability to communicate in their mother tongue in Tibetan, either with their parents or grandparents, which means the erosion of their own identity. Such schools have mushroomed in the Tibet Autonomous region, and the UN human rights experts in the report also indicate that this is part of the Chinese conspiracy to destroy Tibetan identity and culture.

Forced construction of hydropower dams

In 2024, the forced construction of hydropower dams in Derge County on the Drichu River sparked peaceful protests by local Tibetans. The dams threaten to flood villages and centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, forcing residents to relocate without consultation or consent. Many of these monasteries date back to the 13th century, including Wontoe Monastery and Yena Monastery, which preserve culturally significant relics, artifacts, and murals. These sites hold immense historical and cultural significance and are home to numerous Tibetan monks and nuns, meaning that their destruction would cause irreplaceable and irrevocable damage to both the cultural heritage and the monastic community.
In response, Chinese authorities carried out a crackdown, arresting monks and local residents, intimidating protesters, and restricting communication. These events raise serious human rights, cultural, and environmental concerns. The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy – North America has called on China to stop the repression, release detainees, and respect the rights of Tibetans affected by these hydropower projects.
The protests were met with harsh measures, including the use of water bullets and electric weapons, resulting in injuries that required hospitalization for many. More than 1,000 Tibetans have reportedly been detained without adequate food or clothing. Authorities also blocked the internet and censored information about the protests on social media platforms as part of the wider crackdown. According to Tencho Gyatso of the International Campaign for Tibet, ''“China tries to hide its forced relocation of Tibetans, its destruction of their environment, and its attempts to wipe out their culture and religion.”''