New Delhi: Members of the Tibetan community in Delhi on Friday (September 11) staged protests against Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming visit to the city for the BRICS summit, citing Beijing's poor human rights record in Tibet.

A group of student activists waved the traditional Tibetan flag near Bharat Mandapam, the main venue for the BRICS summit this weekend, in addition to posters reading ‘Xi Jinping = Genocide’ and ‘Tibet is facing ecocide’, on Friday morning. According to The Hindu, police detained five individuals in connection with the incident.

Tenzin Passang, national director of the Students for a Free Tibet (India) outfit that organised the protest, told the newspaper that they urge BRICS leaders to “confront China's illegal occupation of Tibet”, which she said “has led to its control over Asia's major river systems, systemic human rights violations and expanding border aggression”.

Many Tibetans also held a protest march in Delhi's Majnu ka Tila neighbourhood on Friday morning to oppose Xi's visit. The Tibetan Youth Congress that led the procession said Tibet is a “living question with consequences for human rights, religious freedom, environmental protection, water security, India's national security and the future stability of Asia”.

The outfit specifically condemned Beijing's ‘Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress’ that went into effect two months ago, and which Amnesty International has warned “does the opposite” of what its name suggests. “Rather than celebrating difference, it is about pushing ethnic groups such as Uyghurs, Tibetans and Mongolians to adopt a single, state-defined national identity dominated by Han Chinese culture,” the human rights group has said.

Amnesty also echoed concerns that the new law could help Beijing strengthen its transnational repression of dissidents and critics.

One day after the law went into force, Tibetan refugee Lobga Rangzen immolated himself in front of the United Nations' headquarters in New York in protest. Hundreds of Tibetans in Delhi also shaved their heads and prayed for Rangzen to voice their opposition against the legislation.

India is home to a large community of Tibetan refugees. The Dalai Lama, who fled to India during the unsuccessful Tibetan Uprising of 1959, is based in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, as is the Central Tibetan Administration operating in exile.

Xi will visit India for the BRICS summit on Saturday and will stay in Delhi for just under a day's time. The president's trip here will be his first in seven years, with the interregnum witnessing a sharp deterioration in ties due to the deadly Galwan Valley military clash of June 2020 and a gradual thaw beginning in late 2024.

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