China bans Tibetan students from religious activities during summer break
DHARAMSALA, July 25: Chinese authorities have issued a stern directive to the parents of Tibetan children at a school in Lhasa forcing them to ban their children from taking part in religious activities over the summer holidays.
“Underage students in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region must not take part in religious activities during the summer vacation,” the Chinese state-run media, the Global Times reported.
The rights groups and media reports were critical of the move by the Chinese authorities and stated that the policy reflects increasingly harsh restrictions on the Buddhist culture and that it is largely aimed at reducing the influence of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
But the report the Global Times further went on to justify the ban on Children in traditionally Buddhist Tibet as in accordance with school regulations as well as citing experts that the education law separates education from religious influences.
The parents of students at Lhasa’s Higher Middle School Number 3 have been forced to sign the directive which bans children’s from religious activities and further aims to control their actions during the break.
“We have sent notices to both students and their parents, and have had students sign an agreement that they will not take part in any form of religious activity during the summer vacation,” Choephel, the head of the political education department at Lhasa Middle School, was quoted as saying in the report.
The Communist regime has issued similar edicts to suppress on Islam in Uyghur, but the regime shows no remorse over its suppression of religious endured by the people in both Tibet and Uyghur and instead declares it important to help young people set up a scientific outlook on the world and life.
