Dharamshala, June 28 -- As China's law on "Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress" comes into effect from July 1, the Tibetan government-in-exile has denounced what it described as a legal assault on the survival of the Tibetan language, culture, and identity. The political leader (Sikyong) of Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), Penpa Tsering, has expressed serious concerns about the possible repercussions the new law could have for Tibetans, as well as other ethnic minorities inside China. Tsering, who attended the conference organised by the CTA's research and policy wing, the Tibetan Policy Institute, in New Delhi, said, "To the outside world, the law is presented as a framework for strengthening ethnic solidarity. To Tibetans, however, it represents the legal codification of a decades-long campaign aimed at transforming Tibetan identity, weakening Tibetan culture, restricting religious life, and replacing a distinct civilisation with a state-defined conception of national identity. In essence, this tantamount to China committing crime against humanity and legalising genocide in Tibet." The law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, passed on March 12, by China's 14th National People's Congress, is set to take effect from July 1. Sikyong said that the legislation serves two principal purposes. "First, it provides the Chinese government with an explicit legal framework to intensify long-standing assimilation policies on Tibetan, Uyghur and Mongolian people within the People's Republic of China (PRC). Second, the legislation attempts to insulate these policies from both domestic and international criticism. Once assimilation is codified into law, criticism can be portrayed as opposition to the rule of law itself. Beijing increasingly seeks to argue that concerns raised by governments, scholars, or international organisations constitute interference in China's internal affairs rather than legitimate responses to internationally recognised human rights obligations," he said. The Dharamshala-based Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile in March passed a resolution rejecting the law, terming it as legally illegitimate and condemned it as a tool of forced assimilation aimed at eroding Tibetan language, religion, culture, and identity. It further stated that the law violates international human rights standards and contradicts provisions in China's Constitution and its regional ethnic autonomy laws. Sikyong said that at the heart of CTA's vision for resolving the Sino-Tibetan conflict lies the middle way approach, a peaceful, pragmatic, and mutually beneficial framework proposed by the Dalai Lama. It does not seek separation from the PRC but genuine autonomy within the framework of the Chinese Constitution, enabling Tibetans to preserve their language, religion, culture, and way of life while becoming, in the words of the proposal, "masters of their own affairs." "Unfortunately, the recently enacted Ethnic Unity Law takes China in precisely the opposite direction. Rather than creating conditions for trust and reconciliation, it institutionalises policies of assimilation under the guise of "national unity"," he said....