(TibetanReview.net, Jul12’22) – As Tibetans and devotees across the free world marked the 87th birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Jul 6 with religious fervour and festive gaiety, authorities in occupied Tibet reportedly used the occasion to denigrate and condemn the 1989 Nobel Peace laureate with a series of campaign activities. Marking his birthday was banned and those found in possession of his photos arrested.
The idea was to hail the economic modernization and progress of Tibet, which China annexed in the 1950s, and to depict the Dalai Lama as a slave master, separatist, and even anti-Buddhist.
In many schools, students were compelled to attend mandatory classes on “Explaining and Criticizing the Reactionary Nature of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama,” reported bitterwinter.org, run by a magazine on human rights and religious liberty, Jul 12.
The report said students who called sick or tried otherwise not to attend those classes and their families were summoned to police stations and received various punishments.
In capital Lhasa and other cities, exhibitions on anti-Dalai-Lama themes were reported to have been held. They hailed the progress of Tibet Autonomous Region under China and falsely depicted the past Dalai Lama administration as one keeping the population in a condition of slavery.
White boards placed in the exhibitions were stated to have carried slogans such as “Students who believe in religion are disloyal to the Party,” and “Party members do not believe in any religion.”
Students taken to visit the exhibitions were stated to have been made to sign by impressing the palm of their hands on the boards.
The report carried a photo, taken from Weibo, of an exhibition board with anti-religious slogans “signed” by students with impressions of palms of their hands.
