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
The Shoton, or Yogurt Festival, runs this year from Aug. 19 to 24 and features the unveiling of a large embroidered thangka portrait of the Buddha on a hillside outside Lhasa’s Drepung monastery, with Tibetan devotees flocking to see the precious relic
Chinese mining operations in Tibetan areas “have caused great harm to the environment,” however, said Zamlha Tenpa Gyaltsen—a Tibetan environmental researcher at the Tibet Policy Institute in Dharamsala, India—speaking to RFA’s Tibetan Service in a recent interview.
While anti-gang campaigns are being carried out across Tibetan regions of China, these are often used as an excuse to suppress environmental activists or ordinary Tibetans promoting use of the Tibetan language or combating corruption in local government, sources told RFA in earlier reports
Though China in recent years has frequently allowed the holding of Tibetan festivals as a sign of stability and “progress” in Tibetan areas, security forces often monitor and sometimes close down events involving large crowds, fearing spontaneous protests against Chinese rule