Tibetan Uprising Day, observed onMarch 10, commemorates the1959 Tibetan uprising which began on March 10, 1959, and theWomen's Uprising Day of March 12, 1959, involving thousands of women, against the presence of thePeople's Republic of China in Tibet.[1][2][3][4][5]
The armedrebellion was quashed by the Chinese army, resulting in a violent crackdown on Tibetan independence movements, tens of thousands of Tibetan deaths, and theescape from China of the temporal and spiritual leader of Tibet, the14th Dalai Lama, disguised as a soldier, on March 19, 1959.[6] It also put an end to the 1951Seventeen Point Agreement, a Sino-Tibetan Agreement written by China which had promised to respect and protect “the religious beliefs, customs and habits of the Tibetan people," which was forced on Tibet to avert war.[7] The Dalai Lama refuted the Sino-Tibetan Agreement after he went intoexile in India, in April 1959, in Tezpur, by making an announcement in the presence of the international community.[8][9]
In 2008, on Tibetan Uprising Day,a series of riots and violent clashes broke out in the Tibetan city ofLhasa when monks were arrested during peaceful demonstrations.[10]The events in Lhasa triggered a nationwideuprising in which protests occurred in every region of Tibet. TheCentral Tibetan Administration estimates that 336 protests occurred in Tibet in 2008.[11][1] China responded to the uprising by isolating theTibetan Autonomous Region from the outside world with overwhelming use of violence, resulting in an unknown number of deaths, arrests, disappearances,cultural genocide, and the ongoing repression ofTibetan culture andreligion inside Tibetan regions of China.[12] In response, starting in 2009 in accordance with its campaign to disseminatepropaganda which portrays its invasion of Tibet as a peaceful liberation, China celebratesSerfs’ Emancipation Day, the anniversary of its bloody repression of the Tibetan uprising in 1959 with a flag raising ceremony and celebrations in Lhasa. China's official journal China Daily reported that "People from all walks of life in the Tibet autonomous region held various activities on Mar 28 to mark anniversary of the liberation of a million serfs."[13]
Tibetan Uprising Day is internationally observed by theTibetan Community, theSangha, and theCentral Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile; governments, organizations, individual Tibetans and non-Tibetans who support the Tibetan people's struggle for religious and cultural freedom, such asStudents for a Free Tibet and theInternational Campaign for Tibet.[14][15] Tibetan independence groups organize protests or campaigns on March 10 to draw attention to the situation in Tibet.[16] The commemoration of Tibetan Uprising Day is also accompanied by the release of a statement by the Dalai Lama.[17][18] Bipartisan United States government support includes a resolution by the Congress of the United States "commemorating the 59th anniversary of Tibet's 1959 uprising asTibetan Rights Day, and expressing support for the human rights and religious freedom of the Tibetan people and the Tibetan Buddhist faith community." and statements and speeches by politicians[19][20][21]
Beijing has regularly been accused of using spying, threats and blackmail against Tibetan exiles in other countries and ‘threatens relatives in Tibet’ to exert control over activists in exile, with greater transnational repression at Tibetan new year,"Losar, which falls on or around the same date as Tibetan Uprising Day.[22][23] China also pressures other countries to suppress Tibetan Uprising Day commemorations and protests.[24][25]Freedom House, a global watchdog which monitors people'spolitical rights andcivil liberties in different geographic areas, regardless of the country they are in, has successively ranked Tibet as theWorld’s Least-Free Country for the three years theFreedom of the World report has been issued, in 2021, 2022, and 2023.[26][27]