In the eastern Tibetan areas of Amdo and Kham (incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu), where over half the Tibetan population live, numerous reports have emerged of attacks on Tibetan language and Buddhist study.

Last month, Drago Monastery School in Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi) prefecture, Sichuan, was demolished on the grounds of land use violations. The school offered a blend of traditional and modern education, including Tibetan language classes, Mandarin Chinese, English and Buddhist doctrines. The school’s 130 students have since been forced to return home without access to alternative schools with Tibetan language and cultural education. Many more Tibetan instruction schools across Sichuan were closed by the end of 2020, and those remaining have been threatened with closure if they do not switch to Chinese-language instruction.

This same Chinese-language policy is also being pushed across Qinghai. Earlier in July, the Sengdruk Taktse Middle School in Darlag (Dari) County, Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous prefecture, Qinghai, was also forcibly closed. Rinchen Kyi, a long-serving teacher, was arrested on Aug. 1 for “inciting separatism” after holding a hunger strike mourning the school’s closure. After the school’s closure, nearby Tibetan-instruction schools were also warned that they may face closure soon. Click here to read more.