The 2010 Tibetan language protest was a protest in Tongren County

Tongren County

Tongren County known to Tibetans as Rebkong in the region previously known as Amdo is the capital and second smallest administrative subdivision by area within Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province, China. The county has an area of 3465 square kilometers and a population of...

, Qinghai

Qinghai

Qinghai ; Oirat Mongolian: ; ; Salar:) is a province of the People's Republic of China, named after Qinghai Lake...

, People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 by ethnic Tibetan

Tibetan people

The Tibetan people are an ethnic group that is native to Tibet, which is mostly in the People's Republic of China. They number 5.4 million and are the 10th largest ethnic group in the country. Significant Tibetan minorities also live in India, Nepal, and Bhutan...

 students on October 19, 2010.

Protests

According to the Free Tibet Campaign

Free Tibet Campaign

Free Tibet or Free Tibet Campaign is a non-profit, non-governmental organization, founded in 1987 and based in London, England. It stands for the rights of Tibetans to determine their own future and campaigns for "an end to the Chinese occupation of Tibet and for the fundamental human rights of...

, Tibetan students from six schools protested in Tongren from 7am to 2pm. The protest was against alleged proposals for the Chinese language

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 to become the language of instruction in most subjects, excepting Tibetan

Tibetan language

The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...

 and English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 studies in the local Tibetan dialect. The students waved banners saying, "Expand the Use of the Tibetan Language".

A range of reports from hundreds to 9000 people were alleged to have been involved in the protest. According to a local Tibetan blogger, the head of the county’s education department drove out and assured the protestors that "their grievances would be addressed by senior authorities". An education-related protest in Dawu in neighboring Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture of Qinghai province in China. The prefecture has an area of 76,312 km² and its capital is Maqên County.-Geography:...

 was apparently inspired by the Tongren protest. 400 Tibetan students at the Minzu University of China staged a supportive demonstration on October 22.