European Union Resolution Calls For Abolition Of CCP’s Colonial Boarding School System In Tibet
By Tsering Choephel
DHARAMSALA, 20 Dec: The European Parliament’s resolution condemning “the repressive assimilation policies throughout China, especially the boarding school system in Tibet,” calling for immediate “abolishment of the system” received a landslide majority votes, according to various reports.
The adopted resolution, initiated by Salima Yenbou, a member of the European Parliament received 477 votes in favour, 14 against, with 45 abstentions during its plenary session in Strasbourg on Thursday.
Yenbou, according to Tibet.net, the Central Tibetan Administration’s(CTA) official website, was part of the European Parliament delegation that visited Dharamsala, the Tibetan exile headquarters in March this year.
Condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) expansive boarding school system, which according to established report estimates, affects over 1 million Tibetan children and adolescents between the ages of 4 and 18 as victims of this assimilative drive, the resolution urges EU Member States to adopt visa restrictions for officials involved in the boarding school system.
Tenzin Lekshey, the spokesperson of the CTA has lauded the resolution. Considering that all European states have bilateral relations with Beijing, the resolution “is very important in a way to call upon the Chinese leaders to shut down all the colonial-style boarding schools inside Tibet,” he said.
Lekshey highlighted the CCP’s expansive assimilative policies in Tibet as a greater threat, saying, “As of now, the biggest challenge that we are facing is not through the uniformed armies that are pervading Tibet. It is more about the assimilation of Tibetan culture and identities. This is some kind of cohesive policy system that was introduced by the Chinese to annihilate the dependent cultural identity.”
In these boarding schools spread across all three provinces of historical Tibet, around one million children between the ages 4 and 18, with at least 100,000 of them around 4 or 5 years old, face the grim fate of losing their Tibetan identity through thorough brainwashing under the CCP system.
In October, the US announced the imposition of visa restrictions on Chinese officials involved in the “forcible assimilation” policy of Tibetan children in government-run boarding schools.
This mandatory boarding school system is part of the larger ‘sinicisation’ policies that the CCP is implementing in all aspects of the Tibetan identity, from culture to language to religious traditions and practices.
