Three youngsters from the Tibetan community in Austria staged a protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in Vienna on Saturday over the human rights violations perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party in Tibet. They urged the international community to unite and openly support the Tibetan Government-in-exile in their ongoing struggle to protect the human rights of Tibetans in Tibet. Adopting a novel protest, the young Tibetans used a projector and played videos of the forceful displacement of Tibetans by the Chinese in Tibet on the walls of the Chinese Embassy in Vienna. They also projected words highlighting the human rights violations of China and the cultural genocide carried out by China to erase the Tibetan identity.
The young Tibetans, associated with VTAG, Europe, also raised slogans against the large-scale environmental degradation happening in Tibet in the guise of huge projects that are unsustainable for the region. During the protest, the young Tibetans also raised slogans in German to create awareness among the people in Austria that what is happening to Tibetans in Tibet is a deliberate extinction of a community, an identity.
According to young Tibetans, these projects including huge defence establishments, and large dams would displace a large number of Tibetans from their native homeland. One of the main objectives behind such projects is to forcefully relocate Tibetans and erase their identity. The protesters stressed that the systematic disregard for the fundamental rights of Tibetans by the Chinese government reflects a blatant violation of international human rights law.
Protesters said that China, obligated to respect and adhere to mechanisms safeguarding people’s rights, has been persecuting human rights defenders, forcibly resettling Tibetans, engaging in forced labour, fostering workplace discrimination, curtailing religious freedom and language rights, assimilating Tibetan children in boarding schools, and perpetrating cultural genocide.
