US State Dept report highlights China's persecution of Tibetan Buddhism

China is persecuting practitioners of religions "that it deems out of line with Chinese Communist Party doctrine," including by destroying Buddhist houses of worship, and referenced discrimination faced by Tibetan Buddhists, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the release of the 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom this week.

Blinken made these remarks at the State Department on Thursday. Rashad Hussain, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, also spoke during the release of the key report.

Hussain, in his remarks, said that too many governments use discriminatory laws to persecute religious practitioners, according to the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT).

He added that China "continued its crackdown on Tibetan Buddhists. Authorities arrested, tortured, and committed other abuses against Tibetans who promoted their language and culture, possessed pictures and writings of the Dalai Lama, or practiced their religion at Buddhist monasteries."

China has illegally occupied Tibet for over 60 years, turning it into the least-free country on Earth in a tie with South Sudan and Syria, according to the watchdog group Freedom House.

The Tibet section of the report is divided into four sections: Religious Demography; Status of Government Respect for Religious Freedom; Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom; and U.S. Government Policy and Engagement.

According to ICT, the report refers to the regulations that Chinese authorities have been issuing to "control the registration of monasteries, nunneries, and other Tibetan Buddhist religious centers." It says individuals in Tibet have to apply to the "CCP Committee to take up religious orders, and the committee may deny any application."

It further says the Chinese "government continued to place restrictions on the size of Buddhist monasteries and other institutions and to implement a campaign begun in 2016 to evict monks and nuns from monasteries."

In a reference to one of China's most notorious violations of religious freedom, the report notes that "the whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, recognized as the 11th Panchen Lama by the Dalai Lama and most Tibetan Buddhists, remained unknown since his 1995 forced disappearance by Chinese authorities."

( With inputs from ANI )