By AFP and Focus | 2026-07-06

GENEVA -- Tibetan and Uyghur representatives urged governments at a United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council side event in June to press Beijing to repeal China's new ethnic unity law. It threatens the survival of their languages, cultures and identity, they said.

The Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which took effect on July 1, aims to forge a "shared" national identity among ethnic groups and "strengthen cohesion." It provides Beijing with legal cover for longstanding forced assimilation of ethnic minorities, say rights advocates.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has called for the law to be repealed, telling the council on June 15 that it risked deepening restrictions on freedoms of language, education, religion, culture, expression and assembly.

At the council side event on June 26, Tibetan and Uyghur representatives described how, in their view, their cultural, religious and linguistic identities were being criminalized.

Cultural erasure

With the law, Tibetans "are no longer legally allowed to exist," said Thinlay Chukki, the representative of the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration for Central and Eastern Europe, citing a "cultural genocide."

It is "legislating the erasure of Tibetans as a Tibetan identity, as a Tibetan culture, as a Tibetan language," she told AFP.

China officially recognizes 55 ethnic minority groups within its borders who speak hundreds of languages and dialects. The government already mandates the use of Mandarin as the language of instruction in areas with large minority populations, including Tibet.

The law's language provisions underpin that concern. Article 15 reinforces Mandarin as the primary language of instruction in schools and public spaces, a shift critics say displaces Tibetan, Uyghur and other minority languages from classrooms where they once held official standing.

Children at risk

A residential boarding school system has already separated many Tibetan children from their language and culture, and the new law further codifies that model, Chukki said. The International Campaign for Tibet has described the legislation as the culmination of decades of assimilationist policies that Beijing tested first in Tibetan regions before extending them nationally.

A similar boarding school system exists in Xinjiang, where the UN has cited possible crimes against humanity targeting the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority, which China denies.

Beijing wants "to disrupt our entire identity, to disconnect generations," said Zumretay Arkin, vice president of the World Uyghur Congress. The new law, she said, "will completely eradicate Uyghur identity, heritage, religion" and coerce Uyghurs and other minorities into adopting Han Chinese identity.

Diaspora Uyghurs already face surveillance, harassment and pressure on family members still inside China, she said. Article 63, she said, now gives that transnational intimidation a formal legal foundation.

Bhuchung Tsering, director of the research and monitoring unit at the International Campaign for Tibet, condemned what he called a "sinister tactic to go after the youngest and to detach them from their culture," pointing to anecdotes of Tibetan children already unable to converse with their parents.

He highlighted two provisions read together: one ordering parents to instill the new national identity in their children, and another urging citizens to report noncompliance with the law. "It's virtually forcing children to report on their parents," he said.

A Chinese representative at the event defended the law, condemning "countries and organizations that consistently use human rights as a political tool to smear China."

Global reaction

The Tibetan and Uyghur speakers called on diplomats and the UN to press China to repeal the legislation, saying that Article 63 risked an expansion of "transnational repression against dissidents and activists and human rights defenders," Arkin said.

China pushed back on July 3. Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun urged countries to "stop spreading falsehoods" about the law and accused certain governments of exploiting ethnic issues "as a pretext for interfering in China's internal affairs."

The European Parliament passed a resolution in late April calling for the law's repeal, saying that its implementation would have "severe consequences" for European Union (EU)–China relations. The body condemned transnational repression of individuals within EU borders and urged EU member states to suspend extradition treaties with China.

Nine U.S. lawmakers, including the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned the law on July 1, saying it gives Beijing "near limitless authority to prosecute those who would speak out against Beijing's oppression" and further legitimizes its framework for transnational repression.

Keiji Furuya, a member of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said the law's extraterritorial reach was something "no democratic nation can tolerate."

Germany's Federal Foreign Office said Berlin viewed the law with "great concern," saying that individuals and organizations outside China "can be explicitly prosecuted" under its provisions.

[Part II of II: China's Ethnic Unity Law]