Dharamshala: During a speech on foreign affairs at the Australian Parliament last Tuesday, Senator Janet Rice of the Australian Greens once again expressed her concerns over the deteriorating state of human rights inside Tibet and the oppression faced by the Tibetans while urging her government’s intervention to address and protect the human rights violations in Tibet and elsewhere in the world.
“As I speak about human rights around the world, I want to now focus on the plight of peoples who live under occupation, starting with Tibet, which China invaded in 1950, overthrowing the Tibetan government in 1959, 64 years ago. Tibetan Uprising Day is observed on 10 March each year and commemorates the 1959 Tibetan uprising, which ultimately resulted in a violent crackdown on Tibetan independence movements and in the flight of the Dalai Lama into exile. Since that time, it’s estimated that over a million Tibetans have been killed and, with the Chinese government policy of resettlement of Chinese people to Tibet, Tibetans have become a minority in their own country,” said the Senator from Victoria. She also drew attention to the colonial boarding system, a policy program of the Chinese government to intentionally uproot more than a million Tibetan children from their cultural heritage by coercing their assimilation into the Han Chinese majority.
In her concluding speech, Senator Rice expressed her anticipation to visit Dharamshala in April and meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama along with the members of Australia’s All Parliamentary Group for Tibet.
Click here to watch Senator Janet Rice’s Speech.