China: Fewer Tibetans on Lhasa’s Key Ruling Body

China’s war against the Tibetan people continues. Yeah, there’s news about China opening the market place. But on the human rights/freedom/democracy front? It remains an imperalist power crushing the native people of the lands that it forcefully invaded.

(New York, November 7, 2006) – The Chinese government’s decision to reduce the number of Tibetans on Lhasa’s most powerful ruling body raises concerns about the role of Tibetans in administering the region, Human Rights Watch said today.

Appointments made in September to the Chinese Communist Party’s committee in Lhasa, which in effect runs Tibet’s capital, have a lower proportion of Tibetans than at any time in the last 40 years, according to available records. For the first time in 25 years, the Lhasa committee is to be led by an ethnic Chinese politician. Tibetans have faced a high degree of political repression since China’s annexation of Tibet in 1951.

“China seems to be pushing Tibetans out of positions of authority,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Beijing’s promotion of ethnic Chinese leaders fundamentally compromises Tibetans’ right to participate in Lhasa’s most powerful institution….

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Ari Paul has written for The American Prospect, In These Times, Tikkun, Z, Punk Planet, openDemocracy.net, Reason and other newspapers and magazines. He is also a reporter for The Chief-Leader, a New York weekly covering labor in the city.