Oral statement to the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council
Item 3: General Debate
Speaker: Phurbu Dolma
Mr. President, Excellencies,
We are deeply concerned about the continued repression of fundamental freedoms in Tibet. Tibetans face persistent persecution for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, assembly, religion, and cultural practice. Expanding surveillance practices and censorship mechanisms have contributed to an environment where lawful cultural and linguistic...
The United Nations human rights experts have sent a joint communication (AL CHN 15/2025) to the Chinese government, demanding accountability over the death of Tulku Hungkar Dorje, abbot of the Lung Ngon Thubten Choekor Ling monastery in Gade (Ch: Gande) county in Golok (Ch: Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai province. The communication follows the experts’ joint letter to the Vietnamese government (AL VNM 4/2025) concerning Tulku Hungkar...
A group of UN human rights experts issued a joint communication (AL VNM 4/2025) to the Vietnamese government demanding clarity and accountability over the detention, disappearance,...
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), represented by the executive director, Ms Tenzin Dawa, and researcher, Mr Ngawang Lungtok, actively participated in the working sessions of the 54th Human Rights Council session. This participation included attending side events, delivering oral statements, and meetings with various diplomatic missions and NGO partners based in Geneva, Switzerland.
In the lead-up to the fourth cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the People’s Republic of China scheduled for January 2024, these engagements helped drew attention to the deplorable policies and actions undertaken by the Chinese government in Tibet.
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.
A new report released today by TCHRD provides evidence that using the Tibetan Plateau to offset China’s carbon footprints has not translated into eco-compensation for rural Tibetan landholders for their provisioning of ecosystem services. China distorts the concept of payment for ecosystem services by dislocating Tibetan nomadic communities, and forcibly removing them off their lands.