More than 2660 Tibetans fled in 2000

The escapees also included 642 religious clergy indicating how religious freedom was the victim of the greatest forms of repression during the year, the TCHRD said in its annual report.

The report `enforcing loyalty’ says that Tibetans continued to suffer arbitrary arrests and detentions along with unabated torture. Women suffered increased physical violations and children still face bleak future due to highly discriminatory education and employment policies currently in practice.

“Tibetan children face an increasingly uncertain future. Education and employment are subject to intense levels of discrimination and consequently are depriving adolescents any real chance of learning or a career…education and healthcare facilities are all congregated around the mainly Chinese-settled urban areas.”

According to the report, the intensification of "patrioticre-education" campaign saw an increase of "work teams" sent to monasteries and nunneries in remotest areas and expulsions including the closure of four more religious institutions.

The TCHRD has recorded 862 expulsions from religious establishments, including of 147 nuns during the year bringing the total number of such expulsions to 12,271 ever since the campaign was launched in 1996.

Lobsang Nyandak, executive director of the TCHED, said increased religious restrictions during the year extended to general populace, specially to the tibetans in government employment.

Nyandak said refugee testimonies revealed a deep-seated racial prejudice among Chinese employers which automatically categorised tibetans as incompetent and backward. The policy of population transfer was also actively employed by beijing, further contributing to the discrimination and marginalisation of tibetans in their own country, he added.

Methods of control adopted included illegal raids on houses, searching for religious altars and banned photo of the Dalai Lama. The celebration of traditional and religious festivals was also severely curtailed, especially the birthday celebration of the Dalai Lama.

The report has documented 26 arrests during the year linked to political activities. As many as 451 known political prisoners continue to be detained in jails. At least 22 political prisoners were awarded sentence extensions.

The report says that even though Beijing had made overt attempts to enhance its international image by signing an agreement with the United Nations high commission on human rights, the past year saw an increase in almost every area of repression and violation of fundamental freedoms by the Chinese.

The ratification of the conventions protecting these rights has had no effect on reducing the volume of abuses on women through forced sterilisation and contraception procedures that are placing their lives and health at great risk. Conversely, reported incidents seem to be on the increase. With government complicity, prostitution is on the increase throughout Tibet, and with it increasing risk of hepatitis and HIV.

The report lists eleven recommendations and highlights the lack of productive results from the engagement of China by international organisations in "bilateral dialogue."

“Bilateral dialogue has been consistently utlised by Beijing as a method to evade international scrutiny and liability,” Nyandak said.