'Tibetan lawmaker alleges discrimination against minorities'

A Tibetan lawmaker in China has alleged discrimination of ethnic minorities at railway stations, airports and ports in the country, official media reported.
Ethnic minorities are sometimes discriminated against when going through security checks at railway stations, airports, ports and border crossings, or when checking into hotels or visiting shopping malls, the lawmaker, who has not been named, said in a report reviewed at the 18th meeting of the 12th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC).
The report, made by a lawmaker from the Tibet Autonomous Region, concerns the work of implementing the law governing regional autonomy for ethnic minorities in China, another official Daily Global Times said in its report without identifying the Tibetan official.

Discrimination problems have not been eradicated despite the efforts of the cabinet and many governmental departments to correct them by issuing documents concerning such issues, and the problems have caused "strong dissatisfaction" among people in ethnic areas, the report said.
This is the second time that the NPC Standing Committee has inspected the enforcement of the law on regional autonomy in the last 31 years since it took effect, The Beijing News noted.
The report also pointed out that ethnic autonomous regions face more pressure to build an affluent society than other parts of the country.

In 2014, the economies of 30 autonomous prefectures across the country combined were smaller than that of the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, it said.

Basic infrastructure in those regions also lags behind that in other parts of China.
Of the country's 138 border counties, 109 are located in autonomous regions, and as of 2013, 99 of them had no expressways.
Some 6.1 million people in border counties lack electricity, it said.
China has tightened its grip on national security in response to the threats of terrorism and separatism, especially in Tibet and Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where more stringent security measures are in place, the Global Times report.
Both the regions were under thick blanket of security.
Security was stepped up in Tibet in the last few years following a spate of self immolation calling for return of the Dalai Lama.

Xinjiang, where the ethnic Uyghur Muslims were restive over settlements of Hans has been experiencing a number of violent attacks in recent years.
China blames the attacks on the al-Qaeda separatist East Turkistan Islamic Movement.