Dharamshala — Human Rights Watch released its World Report 2026 on Wednesday and stated, “Chinese authorities systematically deny the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion, and persecute government critics.
Tightened Chinese Communist Party (“Party”) ideological control has been accompanied by harsh forced assimilation of Tibetans and Uyghurs and by imposition of a repressive national security regime in Hong Kong.”
Human Rights Watch released its World Report 2026 on February 4, 2026. The report stated, “The Chinese government continues its highly repressive policies in Tibet, including policies that force Tibetans to assimilate, such as harassing and detaining Tibetan educators and shutting down schools that promote Tibetan language and culture.”
In terms of the freedom of expression, the report said that the Chinese government controls all major channels of information and implements one of the world’s most stringent surveillance and censorship regimes. It uses the Party-controlled legal system to punish, forcibly disappear, and imprison critics.
The Human Rights Watch report further stated, “Xi Jinping visited Tibet in August and called for Tibetan Buddhism “to adapt to socialist society,” signaling further state interference in the religion.”
“The authorities responded to the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday in July, celebrated internationally but banned in Tibet, with a security crackdown. The few reports that reached the outside world suggested authorities made arrests and tightened restrictions at the Kirti monasteries in Ngawa and Gannan prefectures, and at Tsang monastery in Tsolho prefecture, where official intimidation reportedly provoked the suicide of the head monk, Geshe Sherzang Gyatso, in August,” the HRW report mentioned.
The report also stated, “The suspicious death of a Tibetan high lama, Humkar Dorje Rinpoche, in Vietnam in March after he had reportedly fled Tibet came amid growing reports of Chinese government transnational repression.”
