'Military buildup in Tibet may lead to more repression'

Massive Chinese military buildup in Tibet ahead of Tuesday's 50th anniversary of the uprising against the Communist rule may lead to more repression and unrest in the coming days, a top US think tank has said.

Massive Chinese military buildup in Tibet ahead of Tuesday's 50th anniversary of the uprising against the Communist rule may lead to more repression and unrest in the coming days, a top US think tank has said.

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Expressing “grave concern” over the buildup, Freedom House has said that Tibetans are “significantly less” free today than five years ago.

"Conditions in Tibet have reached a critical level," said Jennifer Windsor, Freedom House executive director. "The international community has largely turned a blind eye to China's human rights abuses in Tibet. The average Tibetan is clearly less free and in more personal danger today than they were just five years ago.”

But as China's leadership asserts itself more on the global stage, the think tank believes it provides an opportunity to hold them to “appropriate standards of international behavior."

Resentment of Chinese rule, it said, has grown in the lead up to the March 10 anniversary, with China's leaders responding by ordering the largest troop deployment since the Sichuan earthquake last year and enforcing a curfew on Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. Ethnic tensions also have been exacerbated by China forcing nomadic herders to resettle and moving more Han Chinese into Tibet.