The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) submitted a UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) report ahead of the fourth periodic review of the People’s Republic of China in January 2024.
The submission outlined a number of concerns and recommendations on specific human rights issues, including repression of Tibetan Buddhism, systematic attacks on the Tibetan language, freedom of expression and association, denial of legal rights of detainees and prisoners, and torture.
TCHRD will conduct a series of advocacy and lobbying activities in the months leading up to the review, targeting embassies in New Delhi and permanent missions in Geneva, respectively, so that States will raise the issues during the interactive dialogue with the PRC government.
The submission includes the following recommendations:
- Guarantee the freedom of religion and other cultural rights to all Tibetans, including language, education, history and the ability to practise and promote them.
- Cease the repression of Tibetan Buddhism and the destruction of monastic institutions and places of worship.
- Guarantee the rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression in Tibet.
- Reinstate Tibetan medium education in Tibetan schools across Tibet and cease shutting down privately-run Tibetan schools.
- Provide a fair and transparent criminal justice system to all, including allowing adequate legal representation for every person. To cease intimidation of lawyers of Tibetan defendants.
- Provide a definition of torture in commensurate with international standards and for judicial trials to disregard evidence revealed by means of torture.
- Cease arbitrary detention practices by closing all facilities of extrajudicial detention centres or facilities.
- Cooperate with the UN human rights treaty bodies by submitting timely periodic reports.
- Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
- Allow access to the UN Human Rights Commissioner and other international fact-finding delegations to assess the human rights situation in Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas in Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan provinces.
- Issue a standing invitation to UN independent experts on torture, education, religion, and arbitrary detention to conduct official visits to Tibetan areas.