Washington, DC [US], December 2 (ANI): Tibetan activist Tenzin Dorjee, Senior Researcher and Strategist at the Tibet Action Institute, delivered a powerful address at the United Nations’ 18th Forum on Minority Issues, highlighting what he called China’s ongoing campaign of cultural erasure in Tibet.
Speaking before UN officials, diplomats, and representatives from over 26 nations, including China, Dorjee recounted his personal journey as a Tibetan refugee in India, a minority student in Delhi, and later an immigrant in the United States. These experiences, he said, shaped his understanding that minorities “do not deplete a state’s resources, nor do they jeopardise societal stability,” but instead contribute to society through culture, labour, innovation, and perspectives that allow nations to better understand themselves.
Dorjee stressed that Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Southern Mongolians are more than traditional minorities; they are peoples with inherent rights to self-determination under international law. He highlighted China’s policies of colonial assimilation, including the mass internment of over a million Uyghurs, bans on the Mongolian language in Inner Mongolia, and the systematic dismantling of Tibetan culture through state-run colonial boarding schools.
Citing research from the Tibet Action Institute, Dorjee noted that approximately three out of every four Tibetan children—between 800,000 and 900,000 students aged 6 to 18—are separated from their families and placed in residential schools designed to erase their language, culture, and identity. “These children are being systematically transformed into Chinese,” he warned, calling for the closure of such institutions and the reopening of local schools that allow children to be raised within their communities and families.
Challenging the notion that diversity threatens national unity, Dorjee asserted, “It is not multiculturalism that causes instability, but rather the enforced imposition of cultural uniformity. If you have one terrorist, you have a problem. If you have a million terrorists, then perhaps you are the problem,” highlighting the risks of repression rather than diversity.
Despite two attempts by the Chinese delegation to interrupt his speech, Dorjee remained steadfast, concluding with a plea for all nations, including China, to respect the rights of national minorities to sustain and develop their languages and cultural practices. (ANI)
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