E/CN.4/1993/62 page 5 by the People’s Congress of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. In addition, he would also like to acquaint himself with the activities of the Tibetan Buddhism Guidance Committee. It has been alleged that a report concerning basic policy on religious affairs produced in February 1991 in the Ganze prefecture of Sechuan province states that ’Freedom of religious belief is a long-term policy which will prevail until the natural extinction of religion’, adding that ’...we are not totally ready for the natural extinction of religion, and we must make a long-term effort’. The report states, inter alia, ’...all the people living in Ganze prefecture knew that among the 80,000 people living in Ganze prefecture, 76 per cent are Tibetans, the majority of whom believed in Tibetan Buddhism, and there is a thousand years of history (of them believing in it). From here we can see very clearly that we must have a good nationality relationship in order to carry out the policy of freedom of religious belief’. It has been said that the report further indicates that ’We must remember the lessons we have learned from the past when we adopted simplistic and forceful methods to extinguish religion and eventually got just contrary to what we had expected.’ The report allegedly also states that ’To protect proper religious activities, it is also necessary for the masses of religious people and monks to do according to the party’s religious policy. Religious activities and religious lives can only be developed and carried out within the scope of the permission of the policy and law’, adding ’Of course, to undertake religious activities outside the religious site is abnormal, and must be forbidden.’ It is also said to indicate that ’Religious professionals are responsible for liaising with the religious masses to manage religious affairs and keep them in order, and to preserve monasteries, especially those monasteries which have been listed as important cultural units.’ It reportedly prescribes that ’We must bear in mind the reality of the masses of people in our prefecture. They have just been living a reasonably well-off life, and therefore we must advise them on not to donate too much money to religion, and not to start big constructions, in order to avoid waste of manpower, etc.’ The report allegedly states further that ’It should be pointed out specially that the regulation on forbidding young people under 18 years of age to be religious was not seriously carried out in some areas. It is not allowed and (is) a violation of the policy to seduce young people into religion by taking advantage of their inexperience and inability to tell right from wrong.’ The report is said to conclude by indicating that ’It is obvious, therefore, that it is a long-term, not-ending-until-the-naturalextinction-of-religion enduring work to continue to propagate the religious policy to the masses, especially the religious people, to raise their level of self-consciousness.’ It has been reported that the Monlam (Great Prayer) Festival has been banned for the third consecutive year and that the streets in the Barkor area of Lhasa which are used for circumambulation of the Jokhang Temple were dug up during this period. It has also been reported that on this occasion a 24-hour curfew had been placed on monasteries near Lhasa from 1 to 11 March 1991 and that units of the People’s Armed Police (Wu Jing) of up to 100 men sealed off the monasteries, thus preventing about 900 monks from leaving the monasteries of Drepung, Ganden and Sera. It has been alleged that a monk had been shot and wounded in the abdomen by the armed police on 1 March 1991.