Videos Show Principal Beating Tibetan Child in Boarding School

Reports of Child’s Death at Separate School Trigger Calls for Investigations

For Immediate Release
December 16, 2024

Boston – Footage of the principal of a boarding elementary school in Tibet beating a young Tibetan boy around November 18th 2024 has gone viral on Chinese social media. While reports of the death of a child at a different boarding school in mid-October have surfaced in the same province. This news follows disturbing allegations of abuse at another Chinese government-run boarding school made on camera by several young Tibetan monks in September [1]. Tibet Action Institute has documented further evidence of abuse and neglect at China’s colonial boarding schools in Tibet in a forthcoming report [2] and is calling for immediate action from the international community including an investigation by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk. 

The beating was documented in three different sets of footage [3] posted on the Chinese social media site Douyin. The incident took place on or before November 18 at Tsokhyil Township Ethnic Boarding Primary School མཚོ་འཁྱིལ་ཡུལ་ཚོའི་བཅའ་སྡོད་མི་རིགས་སློབ་ཆུང་། (Chinese: Quanji Township National Boarding Primary School 泉吉乡民族寄宿制完全小学) in Kangtsa County རྐང་ཚ་རྫོང་། in the Tso Ngon མཚོ་སྔོན་། region of Tibet’s Amdo province (Chinese: Gangcha County, Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai 青海省海北藏族自治州刚察县). The school’s principal has been identified as Dang Qingfu (Chinese: 党青福). Dang is also the local Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Sources in the region, who remain unidentified for their safety, report that video footage of the incident was shared with the school’s parents’ association and was also posted online, where it went viral; Tibetans were later barred from sharing the footage and the school claimed the principal was under investigation, yet he remained in his position. Tibet Action Institute calls for Dang Qingfu to be immediately removed from his position and face legal charges.

Multiple independent reports from Tibet also indicate that in mid-October, a child in grade four – aged approximately 10 or 11 years old – died after falling from a top bunk and then out of a window at an elementary boarding school also in Amdo near Rebkong City, called Maba Boarding Primary School ཐུན་རིན་གྲོང་ཁྱེར་ཐོ་རྒྱ་གྲོང་རྡལ་སྨད་པ་བཅའ་སྡོད་སློབ་ཆུང་། (Chinese: Tongren City Bao’an Town Maba Boarding Primary School 同仁市保安镇麻巴寄宿制小学). Sources reported that authorities responded by holding emergency meetings at boarding schools in the area, but did not indicate whether there was any investigation into what happened to the child nor whether school officials were investigated or held accountable for the child’s death.

Tibet Action Institute has documented further evidence of abuse and neglect at China’s colonial boarding schools in Tibet in a forthcoming report [2] that suggests parents are afraid of retribution if they raise concerns about conditions or practices at China’s state-run boarding schools in Tibet, and school authorities are rarely held accountable for cases of abuse or death.

“These videos show what the Chinese government doesn’t want us to see: the sometimes fatal vulnerability of Tibetan children forced to live in state-run boarding schools,” said Lhadon Tethong, Director of Tibet Action Institute. ”Taking children as young as three or four away from their parents and moving them into institutions makes them extremely vulnerable to beatings, neglect, and other abuse. The Chinese government must end its colonial boarding school system in Tibet,” Tethong continued.

“The sense of impunity this school principal seems to have as he openly beats a Tibetan child is exactly the same sense of impunity the Chinese government appears to possess as it commits a slow form of genocide through the colonial boarding school system in Tibet,” said Dr. Gyal Lo, a Tibetan educational sociologist and Tibet Specialist at Tibet Action Institute. “Governments and UN bodies have sounded the alarm about colonial boarding schools in Tibet; what these children urgently need is an independent international investigation into the abuse they’re enduring.”

International concern has intensified in recent years as the Chinese government has moved to eradicate Tibetan-medium schooling and compel Tibetan parents to enroll their children in state-operated Chinese-medium boarding schools. An estimated one million Tibetan children aged four to 18 have been separated from their parents and made to live in state-run boarding schools that serve as instruments for stripping children of their Tibetan language and identity and indoctrinating them into Chinese nationalism and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party [4]. A growing number of UN Member States and independent human rights experts have urged Beijing to abolish the coercive boarding school system [5]. The U.S. government has gone further, imposing visa sanctions on Chinese officials linked to the schools [6].

 

Media Contact:

Lhadon Tethong, Director, Tibet Action Institute  +1 (917) 418-4181 

Dr. Gyal Lo, Tibet Specialist, Tibet Action Institute  +1 (647) 619-9821

Email enquiries: [email protected]

 

Notes for Editors:

 

[1] Footage first released by Radio Free Asia on September 9, 2024 shows young monks following what is described as a suicide attempt after escaping from a state-run boarding school and jumping into a nearby river. The children weep as they describe the school as “unbearable” and being “like a prison,” where they are not given enough food, denied water, and where they are harassed, beaten and discriminated against, including being prevented from reciting Buddhist texts. The monks had recently been forced to leave Muge Monastery school and attend a state-run boarding school. In a separate video of an incident that took place on or before September 6, 2024, a young monk who sources have confirmed had also been forced to leave Muge Monastery School can be seen being forced into a car by two unidentified men.

[2] Tibet Action Institute will release a second report on China’s colonial boarding school system in Tibet in early 2025. The first report, Separated from Their Families, Hidden from the World: China’s Vast System of Colonial Boarding Schools in Tibet, https://tibetaction.net/colonial-boarding-school-report/ was released in December 2021. 

[3] See Video 1; Video 2; Video 3.

[4] UN Special Procedures, China: UN experts alarmed by separation of 1 million Tibetan children from families and forced assimilation at residential schools, February 6, 2023:  https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/02/china-un-experts-alarmed-separation-1-million-tibetan-children-families-and

[5] Tibet Action Institute Press Release, UN Member States Slam China for Coercive Residential Schools System in Tibet at Major Rights Review, January 23, 2024: https://tibetaction.net/press-release-un-member-states-slam-china-for-coercive-residential-schools-system-in-tibet-at-major-rights-review/ 

[6] Tibet Action Institute Press Release, US Secretary Blinken Announces Action Against Colonial Boarding Schools in Tibet, Visa Restrictions on PRC Officials Tied to Assimilation of 1M Tibetan Children, August 22, 2023: https://tibetaction.net/us-secretary-blinken-announces-action-against-colonial-boarding-schools-in-tibet-visa-restrictions-on-prc-officials-tied-to-assimilation-of-1m-tibetan-children/ 

 

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