China is now banning offerings of burnt juniper boughs and other fragrant smoke outside the iconic Jokhang temple in Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa, with authorities citing concerns over air pollution, sources in the city say
From 2015 to the end of 2019, the average annual net income of poor Tibetans had climbed from 1,499 yuan (U.S. $223) to 9,328 yuan (U.S. $1,376), and anti-poverty drives have now shifted their focus from eradicating absolute poverty to consolidating the gains already made
Ten Tibetan villagers given long prison terms by a Chinese court this year on charges of extortion were targeted in an anti-gang campaign used as a cover for cracking down on grass-roots community organizations deemed threats to Communist Party control, a Tibetan advocacy group said on Thursday
In several towns in Qinghai’s Rebgong (in Chinese, Tongren) county, local primary schools have been closed by government order, and Tibetan children are being forced against their parents’ wishes into boarding schools in areas far away, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service this week.
The evictions will clear the way for the creation of the Mount Qilian National Park, a 50,200 square kilometer parkland and wild animal preserve straddling parts of Qinghai and neighboring Gansu, with the greater part lying in Gansu
China’s government has already been censoring politically sensitive words on TikTok, WeChat, and other social media platforms for years, Wangden Kyab, a senior researcher at the Dharamsala, India-based human rights group Tibet Watch
Dolkar, who was convicted in May 2019 of sharing news amid tight information curbs of the protest by her nephew Wangchen, was released on Aug. 15 and is now receiving medical care at her home in Sershul (in Chinese, Siqu) county in Sichuan’s Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, a Tibetan source in exile told RFA
Film content is now frequently changed even for American audiences, while studios provide censored versions of films specifically for Chinese audiences and sometimes invite Chinese censors onto film sets to advise them on how to avoid “tripping the censors’ wires,” PEN America said
Tibetans who try to voice their grievances against the Chinese government on social and environmental issues are frequently the targets of arrest, TCHRD researcher Pema Gyal told RFA’s Tibetan Service in a recent interview.
Lobsang Sangay, a Harvard-trained scholar of law, has now served two consecutive terms as Sikyong and will retire as president of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) when his present terms ends in May 2021