Chinese authorities launch a series of measures to intensify their campaign against the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetans, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. With the beginning of another year that brings along with it several historically significant milestones, the Chinese leadership is promoting its ever stronger grip over the people of Tibet!
While the Chinese authorities in Tibet forcing Tibetans to remove pictures of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from their homes and banning it is not new, it is now further stepping up with the campaign; there are confirmed reports of the authorities forced Tibetans to replace the picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama with that of Chinese President Xi Jingping on their altars and making them present offerings and prostrate to them.
“Amid other signs of an intensified campaign against the Dalai Lama, in the eastern Tibetan area of Serthar (Chinese: Seda) county in Sichuan, Tibetans who receive official “poverty alleviation” subsidies from the government have been ordered to remove images of the Dalai Lama from their homes and to destroy their altars, according to information from former political prisoner Golok Jigme. Some families are even being compelled to display images of China’s leader Xi Jinping in their homes, and to prostrate and make offerings.” said the special report published by the International Campaign for Tibet based in the US.
It also added that new housing provided for Tibetans relocated in settlements in Kham were already equipped with small altars – not with Buddhist icons, but with images of Chinese Party leaders. Proposals to build statues of not only current leaders but of all those officials deployed in Tibet throughout the history have been submitted according to the report.
While many Tibetan families and institutions still display the picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in their homes despite the dangers, some poor families display images of Chinese Party leaders in their homes for fear of having their subsidies cut if they do not.
The upcoming year marks the 60th Anniversary of March 10th Uprising in 1959 after His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet while it will also mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Xi Jinping government in addition to stepping military inside Tibet as well as along Tibet-India borders, the president has recently declared his army to be combat ready!
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