Free Tibet Movement Continues
Students Hold Candlelight Vigils in Harvard Square
With the Olympic torch moving towards San Francisco, students and activists hold protests across the United States.
Around the world, students are fighting for Tibetans' right to preserve their own identity. These students and activists are mostly part of Students for a Free Tibet, a group with a vision of creating a just and equitable world, free of oppression.
Every night, a group of people gather next to the Harvard T stop in Harvard Square and hold candles to protest China's conduct on Tibet. On April 7, three Tibet independence activists scaled the Golden Gate Bridge and unfurled a large protest banner reading “One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 08.”
These supporters are increasing pressure on the International Olympic Committee to immediately withdraw Lhasa, the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Tibetan provinces of Amdo and Kham (now annexed into China's Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Gansu provinces) from the Olympic torch relay route. “China must not be allowed to parade the Olympic torch through Tibet while hundreds, possibly thousands, of Tibetans are tortured and brutalized in Chinese detention cells,” said Matt Whitticase, of Free Tibet Campaign.
With the torch moving towards San Francisco, Tibetans and supporters from New York, Washington DC, Toronto, Minnesota, Santa Fe, Salt Lake City, Portland, Calgary, Seattle, Los Angeles, Vancouver and other cities in North America are meeting up in San Francisco for mass protests today and tomorrow to demand Tibet be removed from the torch relay route.
China’s latest deadly attack on Tibetans came in in Tongkor Township in southeastern Tibet on April 3 after Chinese authorities detained two monks for possessing photos of the Dalai Lama. Following a raid by over 3,000 armed police at Tongkor monastery, the police opened fire on the crowd of over 700 people - nearly half of whom were monks - gathered to protest the arrests. All Tibetan areas remain closed off to independent media
Who is Students for Free Tibet (SFT)?
Students for a Free Tibet is a network of young people and activists around the world. With headquarters based in New York, the group campaigns for Tibetans' rights to political freedom. The group tries to spread its message through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action, training youth as leaders in the worldwide movement for social justice.
Background About Tibet
The country of Tibet (located in the Himalayan Mountains) was invaded by China in the mid 1900s and has become a colony of China. Since that time, over 1.2 million Tibetans have died as a direct result of the occupation, over 6,000 monasteries have been destroyed, and thousands of Tibetans have been imprisoned and tortured for their political or religious beliefs.
In Tibet today, the basic freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly are strictly limited, and arbitrary arrests continue. According to human rights groups, there are currently hundreds of political prisoners in Tibet, including the young Panchen Lama, imprisoned since age six. Torture of political prisoners is commonplace.
Who is the Dalai Lama?
The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s political and spiritual leader, was forced to flee Tibet in 1959. He escaped to India along with over 120,000 other Tibetans, and established the Tibetan Government in exile in Dharamsala.
