A disturbing video has emerged showing a teacher slapping, pushing down and pulling the ear of a Tibetan student in front of other students gathered on what appears to be a sports field.
The video, which contains no sound, was contained in a report released by the Tibet Action Institute, an advocacy group based in North America, on Dec. 16. The incident was filmed on or before Nov. 18, according to sources of the rights group.
The institute identifies the teacher as Dang Qingfu, the school principal at a boarding school for Tibetan students called Tsokhyil Township Ethnic Boarding Primary School in Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in China’s Qinghai province.
Dang is also the local Communist Party secretary, the institute said.
The video footage of the incident was shared with the school’s parents’ association and was also posted online, where it went viral. However, Tibetans were later barred from sharing the footage.
China has many such boarding schools for Tibetan students, where they are instructed only in Mandarin, not in their native Tibetan language.
Tibetan advocates see these as part of broader government efforts to eradicate the use of Tibetan language and enforce “patriotic education,” which mandates that love of China and of the ruling Communist Party be incorporated into work and study for all.
The school has claimed the principal is under investigation, but still remains in his position. The Tibet Action Institute called for Dang to be immediately removed from his position and face legal charges.
Gyal Lo, an educational sociologist at Tibet Action Institute told Radio Free Asia, that the incident was a serious violation of human rights, ethnic rights and children’s rights.
But he said that it’s difficult to hold Chinese officials accountable in Tibetan areas as local governments consistently implement policies that contradict their own constitution.
“I don’t think the Chinese government will consider this as racial discrimination against Tibetans, investigate and punish these kinds of school principals,” he said.
In recent months, reports of abuse faced by Tibetan children at these state-administered boarding schools have come to light in recent months.
In September, Radio Free Asia reported that five young Tibetan former monks who were forced to attend a local government-run boarding school in Sichuan’s Zungchu county attempted to take their own life saying they found it “unbearable” to stay in the school, where they said they were discriminated against, beaten and deprived of good food.
In October, RFA learned from sources that hundreds of young Tibetan Buddhist monks who had been forcibly transferred from a shuttered Buddhist monastery school to government-run boarding schools in Sichuan’s Ngaba county were being held in ‘prison-like conditions’ in the schools.
