(TibetanReview.net, Aug15’25) – The US State Department’s 2024 Country Report on Human Rights, released on Aug 12, confirms ongoing and serious human rights abuses against the Tibetan people, including disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrest, and restrictions on religious freedom under Chinese rule. However, alarmingly, the report lacks the deep substance of past years, noted Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT, savetibet.org) Aug 14.
ICT said the report is, in fact, more notable for its omissions, and for underscoring the importance of Radio Free Asia (RFA) as one of the few media organizations able to report on human rights abuses in Tibet. The broadcast service remains effectively closed due to the Trump Administration’s general cost-saving cut in funding for the national media body which runs it.
Noting that the 2024 report is less than half the length of the previous year’s report for 2023, ICT said it omits numerous important sections on the rights situation in Tibet. For example, the 2023 report covered serious government corruption in Tibet under Chinese rule, while the word ‘corruption’ does not appear in the latest one. “This is particularly regrettable given the Jun 2024 arrest of former Tibet Autonomous Region Party Secretary Wu Yingjie, who was convicted of embezzling 343 million Chinese yuan during his time in Tibet,” the group said.
Also omitted is the section on political prisoners, while the previously robust sections on internet freedom, the right of assembly, and movement have been greatly reduced, even as these and other violations have continued to be serious, the group added.
The 2024 report for 2023 was stated to have repeatedly cited RFA as a source for incidents including social media surveillance of Tibetans, the sentencing of activists, and the arrest of a monk.
As Tibet remains effectively closed to independent journalists, reports like those from the US State Department serve to highlight the credibility of widespread and persistent accusations of human rights abuses in Tibet by the Chinese government. The reports elevate facts which the Chinese government does not want the world to know, said the ICT report.
ICT has noted that while a robust report provides an overarching view of China’s machinery of repression, a reduced one leaves much of this out of view. Less factual and less comprehensive reporting creates more ability for China to explain away its abuses. ICT has therefore called on the State Department to restore the previously more comprehensive structure of the Human Rights Report to support US and international advocacy and accountability efforts on the Chinese government’s abuses.