Dharamshala: Chinese authorities have launched a devastating new wave of demolitions at the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, the world’s largest Tibetan Buddhist institute, located in Serthar (Ch: Seda) County, Karze, Tibet’s traditional Kham province, now incorporated into China’s Sichuan Province. According to reliable sources, the demolitions began around 13 July 2026, initially deliberately carried out during night to evade public documentation, media reporting, and satellite surveillance, but have now brazenly escalated into broad daylight. As of 15 July, at least six residences have already been torn down, and in the coming weeks and months, authorities are set to systematically destroy an estimated 1,060 quarters belonging to monks and nuns.
The renewed crackdown follows a relentless, decades-long campaign of state-led cultural erasure. Following the catastrophic demolitions in 2001 and 2016–2017—which saw over 7,000 monastic dwellings destroyed, and thousands of residents forcefully evicted—the government of the People’s Republic of China, has continued to tighten its grip on the Tibetan Buddhist Institute. In 2019, it imposed strict zero-enrollment bans and 24-hour surveillance, followed by the aggressive deployment of military personnel, helicopter surveillance, and residency caps in late 2024. Last year, Chinese authorities reportedly expelled over 1,000 Tibetan monks and nuns from the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy under the pretext of lacking proper residency documentation, as officials ruthlessly mandated a reduction of the resident clergy population from 6,000 to 5,000.
While China’s unlawful demolition of Tibetan heritage and blatant disregard for Tibetan identity have been ongoing since the occupation, the timing of this renewed physical destruction is noteworthy. It occurs just weeks after China implemented its new “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress” on 1 July 2026. Rather than fostering unity, this legislation serves as a coercive legal weapon designed to accelerate the forced assimilation of Tibetans. Under the deceptive guise of “Sinicisation” and “Progress,” the state is systematically weaponising this law to erase Tibet’s unique language, culture, religious traditions, and identity.
China’s actions, in no doubts, constitute a gross violation of international human rights law, as well as its own Constitution, which obligates China to respect and protect the cultural, social, and religious rights of the Tibetan people. Instead, by forcing mass evictions of Tibetan monastic communities and replacing Tibetan self-governance with direct Chinese Communist Party administration, China is actively dismantling the very fabric of Tibetan life. The human toll of the Larung Gar crackdown that took place in 2016 and 2017 has been disastrous, resulting in profound psychological trauma and tragic suicides, such as the deaths of Tibetan nuns Tsering Dolma and Semgha amid the 2016 demolitions.
Over the years, major international bodies—including the European Parliament, UN Special Rapporteurs, the U.S. government, and leading human rights organisations—have repeatedly issued official resolutions, joint communications, and formal declarations condemning Beijing’s systematic demolitions and cultural erasure at Larung Gar. China must not operate under the false assumption that simply because these initial condemnations were issued years earlier, the international community has forgotten its ongoing crimes in Larung Gar or will remain silent as this destruction continues. PRC government must halt all demolitions at Larung Gar, withdraw its military and administrative forces from the region, and uphold its binding obligations to respect the fundamental rights of the Tibetan people.
-Report filed by the UN, EU, and the Human Rights Desk, Tibet Advocacy Section, DIIR
