Arrest and imprisonment of Tibetans in Tibet can be for the simplest of actions such as storing a picture of the Dalai Lama on a mobile phone or celebrating his birthday , discussing the Tibetan exile government on social media protesting against mining activities, advocating for the teaching of Tibetan language in schools or calling for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet.

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The conditions in prisons and detentions centres in Tibet, and the treatment of Tibetan political prisoners, are extremely poor. Testimonies from former political prisoners detail evidence of the widespread use of torture as a method to extract confessions. Political prisoners are regularly beaten and there are repeated instances of detainees being subjected to electric shocks, being hung from the ceiling for periods lasting several hours, and shackled to a “Tiger” or interrogation chair.

Severe prison conditions have led to the death of a number of Tibetan prisoners. The most prominent case is Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, a reincarnated Lama who died on 12 July 2015 after 13 years in detention.

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Tibetan monks and nuns are at the forefront of Tibetan resistance, which has made monasteries and nunneries a target by Chinese authorities in an attempt to prevent anti-government activism. Surveillance of monasteries and nunneries across Tibet has increased, with growing numbers of Communist Party officials installed on Tibetan institute management committees, vastly limiting religious freedom.

Compulsory “patriotic re-education” sessions are increasingly common in Tibetan monasteries and villages: such sessions can last for months at a time, and they often require participants to sign declarations in which they are forced to reject Dalai Lama.

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Xi Jinping is paying a great deal of attention to building his image, both nationally and internationally. Since he came to power in 2012, Xi’s government has increased its efforts to change the negative view the world holds of China’s human rights record through soft power, direct threats, political influence, infiltration of universities, manipulation of international media, trade deals and blunt propaganda.

In the last five years there have been heavy-handed cases in which China dictated conditions over national policies in foreign countries. In 2014, Chinese pressure on Spain prompted the Spanish government to make legislative changes thereby forcing the closure of high profile court cases that indicted former Chinese leaders for their actions in Tibet. 

Governments have also come under pressure to prevent human rights campaigners from protesting when Xi Jinping travels abroad. The Swiss authorities imposed a ban on protests during Xi’s visit in January 2017 and in the UK in October 2015, British authorities detained a number of protesters, including two Tibetans and also Tiananmen survivor and human rights activist Shao Jiang.

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Home to the largest store of fresh water outside the Arctic and Antarctic, Tibet is on the frontline of global climate change and under serious threat from China’s failed policies. Like the Arctic, Tibet is experiencing profound climate change impacts. China’s hydro-damming and mineral extraction in Tibet, combined with climate change, threaten to destroy Tibet’s unique ecosystems, disrupting life for a billion people downstream and across Asia.

China is building large dams and water diversion projects on the Tibetan Plateau at an unprecedented rate, including water diversion projects to move water into northern and eastern China; these projects will disrupt already-overstressed water supplies threatening the water security of 1.4 billion people.

From copper for transmission lines to lithium for mobile phone parts, Tibet holds immense stores of key minerals craved by the modern Chinese and global economies. Much like the Arctic, the Tibetan Plateau is even a new frontier for fossil fuel extraction.

Infrastructure development on the plateau is aimed at bringing millions of tourists to Tibet: Lhasa, with a total population of one million, is estimated to receive as many as 13 million domestic Chinese tourists each year, overcrowding a city where financial gains and profits are largely kept in the hands of Chinese private investors, leaving local Tibetans with little if any sustainable profit.

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