Statement of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile on the 67th Anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day

Throughout the course of its historical evolvement since the very beginning of human society, the management and control of the Tibetan nation with regard to its political matters, governance, and legal system have been carried out by its own people without any sort of external dominion authority. This was because Tibet was a free and fully independent country. Its status as such was fully in keeping with today’s universally defined conditions for the recognition of a sovereign, independent country and for the recognition of the nationality by which such a nationhood is constituted. Besides, Tibet’s history of independence has been more robust and much longer than that of many other sovereign independent countries of today. Notwithstanding this fact, however, the People’s Republic of China launched an armed invasion of the country in 1949. The development culminated on the 10th of March in 1959, when people from all the three provinces of Tibet – monastics as well as the lay public – staged a massive uprising in capital Lhasa in a spontaneous outburst of united protest against the occupying communist Chinese power due the policies they implemented and the military domination they imposed in the country. We are today commemorating the 67th anniversary of that event. It is a day impossible for any Tibetan person to ever forget. It is not only a day of immense importance to all the Tibetan people, for it is also our Martyr’s Day to commemorate the men and women who have sacrificed their all, including their very lives, for the religion, polity, and people of Tibet. And so, for all those who have thus far sacrificed their everything, including their precious lives, for the cause of the people of the Tibetan nation and their freedom, and those who continue to be subjected to limitless inhuman hardship, persecuted by the communist Chinese government under all manners of false pretexts even today, the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile commend the martyrs for their resoluteness, valour, and selfless patriotism. Along with it, we offer ardent prayers that the heartfelt wishes of the Tibetan people, the living as well as the dead, for the victorious revival of the freedom of Tibet may be realized with utmost certainty, and that they be embraced with the protective compassion of the patron-deity Avalokiteshvara of Tibet for all lifetimes to come.

During the period following the Second World War, when many countries that had long been under imperial domination regained their independence, the government of the People’s Republic of China exploited the prevailing political situation and other circumstances of the time to launch an armed invasion of Tibet. The ever-worsening situation in Tibet eventually compelled His Holiness the Dalai Lama and more than eighty thousand Tibetans to flee their homeland in 1959 to seek refuge in the holy land of India. During the period of 77 years thus far, throughout which the People’s Republic of China has remained in armed occupation of Tibet, a total of more than two million Tibetan people have met with untimely death under various circumstances engendered by it. And along also with the total destruction of thousands of places of religious study and worship, the government of China has unleashed unimaginably horrifying degree and scale of devastation, plunder, and looting on Tibet’s territorial riches and its living beings. In addition, the government of China has remained relentless in its pursuit of a series of egregious policies directed at destroying the religious, cultural, and linguistic heritage and other characteristic features of the Tibetan people that define Tibetan national identity. It is in a continuation of the implementation of this policy that the Chinese Communist Party has forced countless number of Tibetan children to be removed from their parents and communities to be enrolled in boarding schools with a diabolical strategy to transform the Tibetan identity of Tibet into a Chinese one. This agenda remains an ongoing danger and has today become a matter of utmost urgency. Far from being open to entertaining any idea for the resolution of the Sino-Tibetan conflict, the leaders of China continue to subterfuge with an outpouring of misinformation designed to deceive not only the people of China but also the international community by shelving or burying the reality. Nevertheless, this ongoing malpractice of the government of China is all too well-known to everyone.

Throughout the period that Tibet has remained under the illegal occupation of China since its armed invasion, the government of China has kept distorting the country’s historical sovereignty with fabricated narratives, sought to corrupt the unique culture of the Tibetan people by adulterating it, used coercion to deprive the people of Tibet of their freedom of religious belief, set out to devastate the territorial and natural environment of Tibet, kept trampling on the human rights of the Tibetan people, shut them up from exercising their freedom of speech, colonized Tibet in the name of economic development and progress, made active efforts to prevent any expression of the oneness of the nationality of the Tibetan people, and disregarded the wishes of the Tibetan people. Apart from these, the ground reality remains that the government of China has thus far never implemented any genuinely intended policy measure which is suited to the needs of the Tibetan people. Rather, it has relied solely on policies of violent reprisal and brutal repression against the people of Tibet. As a result, the Tibetan people, both the old and new generations, have carried out a succession of protest demonstrations in a campaign that began in 1987. In particular, the great Earth-Mouse Year uprising protests carried out simultaneously by the people of all the three traditional provinces of Tibet in 2008, still remain fresh in our minds. Along with that, it is worth noting that since the year 2009, there have been a total of at least 157 incidents in which individual Tibetans in occupied Tibet have carried out protest self-immolations in acts of a non-violent campaign against the government of China. These various types of protests continue to be carried out by the Tibetan people to this day. It is important that the government of China appreciate the enormity of the sacrifices the Tibetan people have been making through those protest campaigns.

Since 1979, the Central Tibetan Administration has taken a series of steps by which it made efforts to seek a solution to the Sino-Tibetan conflict by means of adopting a middle way policy. However, the leaders of the People’s Republic of China have refused to budge from their existing hardline policy, with the result that there have been no positive developments in the situation. The situation in Tibet today is such that the Tibetan people continue to remain prohibited from engaging in any public activity that highlights their linguistic, religious, cultural, and artistic heritage as well as the protection of the ecological environment, on the pain of being subjected to arbitrary arrest. It is also a matter of an all too common knowledge that within their own country, the Tibetan people continue to be hindered from fully exercising their freedoms and rights in all aspects of their behaviour – their movement, stay, or activities. This is borne out by the fact that in its annual Freedom in the World report in 2025, which rated people’s access to political rights and civil liberties in countries and territories across the world, the human rights organization Freedom House described the situation in Tibet as one which continued to remain extremely repressive. Likewise, the State Department of the United Sates government detailed the lack of human rights in Tibet in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released on the 13th of August 2025, as well as in other reports. The annual report, in particular, highlighted the fact that China had carried out arbitrary arrests and imprisonments, restricted religious freedom, and perpetrated transnational repression against Tibetan people living in other countries. The report described these as continuing and ongoing violations of the human rights of the Tibetan people. These reports make it clear that the government of China had continued to degrade and weaken the political freedom, civil liberties, and ethnic freedom of the Tibetan people in an ongoing basis; that it has been undermining the linguistic, religious and customary traditions that define the Tibetan identity; that it has been destroying the moral fabric of the Tibetan society; and that it has also been devastating the ecological environment of Tibet. Given such findings, which continue to constitute ongoing atrocities in Tibet – with reports thereon continuing to be most alarming – we reiterate our call on the government of China to bring an immediate end to these violations and atrocities.

It is thanks entirely to the kindness and grace of His Holiness the Dalai Lama that during the past more than six decades of living in exile, we have been able to maintain the momentum of an unwavering struggle for the fundamental cause of Tibet and in making efforts for the preservation of our religious, cultural, linguistic, and other aspects of Tibetan heritage and identity. We have achieved substantial amounts of success in these endeavours and can justly be proud of these achievements. Nevertheless, we are now in a critical moment when the world has entered a new era. It is an era in which the Tibetan people are faced with an existential threat and in order to save ourselves from this abyss, we all need to unite and work together in a cooperative manner. This is the biggest responsibility of the current generation of the Tibetan people. Hence, we strongly urge everyone to strengthen their sense of commitment towards the preservation of the ethnic identity of the Tibetan people as well as the Tibetan language and culture, and towards the struggle for the fundamental cause of Tibet.

During the winter session of the Indian parliament in New Delhi in December 2025, the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile carried out a week-long lobbying campaign among its members. Members of the Standing Committee of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, divided into three working groups, met with a total of 42 prominent Indian leaders during the campaign, which included four Union Ministers and other members of the upper and lower houses of the parliament belonging to 14 different political parties. The working groups briefed the Indian leaders about the urgency of the situation facing Tibet today and on other important related matters. The Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile also organized a series of events to mark the 90th birthday of His Holiness Dalai Lama which is being commemorated year-long as a Year of Compassion. These have included the All-Party Indian Parliamentary Forum for Tibet and the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile jointly convening a commemorative meeting in New Delhi on the 18th of December 2025 as previously planned. The event concluded with the member of the All-Party Indian Parliamentary Forum for Tibet unanimously adopting a five-point resolution.

Taking the opportunity provided by this occasion, the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile wishes to express its gratitude to the Secretary of State Marco Rubio of the United States of America for his offering of greetings on the Tibetan New Year day on 17th of February 2026 and for announcing the appointment of Mr. Riley M Barnes, the State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, as the new US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues. Likewise, on behalf of all Tibetans, both in and outside Tibet, the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile also wishes to express deepest gratitude to the government and people of India, who have been particularly gracious to the Tibetan people in exile, as well as to all countries, organizations, and individuals who have shown concern and support for the Tibetan cause.

In conclusion, the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile wishes to fervently pray that the beloved treasure of all Tibetans, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the ultimate refuge and protector as well as the bulwark of support for all beings in the three realms, but especially for us of the Snowland of Tibet, may be steadfast in remaining in our midst for a hundred aeons, with all his wishes being seen fulfilled with spontaneity and the just cause of Tibet being realized in all speediness.

By the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile

10 March 2026

* In case of any discrepancy between this English translation and its Tibetan original, the latter should be considered as authoritative and final for all purposes.