The Beijing-appointed former governor of Tibet warned that the government needs to make efforts to tackle ethnic discrimination, state media said, in rare comments by a senior official on an issue more commonly taken up by rights groups.
Qiangba Puncog, an ethnic Tibetan who is now a deputy head of the standing committee of China’s largely rubber- stamp parliament, was speaking at an on- going committee session, Xinhua News Agency reported.
“In recent years, there have been recurring instances where people with ethnic backgrounds, even Han people, were discriminated against or denied access to certain service trades,” the report quoted him as saying.
Transport hubs and security checks at border posts and hotels had seen this problem.
The problem had “generated unwanted social impact and caused strong public reactions from ethnic regions,” he added.
Places such as Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, which are officially self- governing regions with large minority populations, are supposed to have large- scale autonomy, though in reality Beijing holds the reins. REUTERS
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