Mark Bonello is the president of the Tibet Society at Plymouth University, a part of the Students for a Free Tibet network. Mark had put up a hand made poster advertising volunteering opportunities with the group on his university campus, the poster included his phone number. Later that night Mark received a call from someone alleging to be his friend. After Mark asked who the caller was, the caller began to threaten him “Where do you live, I'm going to kill you”. Mark hung up on the caller and immediately phoned the police. The police are treating this as a serious matter and are investigating the case further.

“It was disturbing to receive a call like that, the language was pretty disgusting and they didn't just threaten me, they threatened my family. I am concerned to see that some Chinese people in the west are taking up the mantle of the Chinese government, using fear and intimidation to force their will” said Mark. “I don't believe that it is all Chinese students who feel this way, and I would like to open a dialogue with anyone interested to discuss the Tibetan situation” he added.

Earlier in the day Plymouth University Student's Union was stormed by 120 Chinese students who aggressively demanded that the Tibet group be immediately disbanded. Representatives of the union explained to the students that the group had existed for two years and that they had not broken the rules of the Union. The local police were alerted, though the students had dispersed by the time the police arrived.

The Union held a meeting last week with the president of the Chinese Society, representatives of Plymouth Student's Union and the local police, though Mark and other SFT representatives were not allowed into the meeting. There will be a second meeting this week to try to reolve the matter.

There have been other students who have received death threats over Tibet, around the world. A Chinese student in the USA who tried to negotiate between groups of Tibetan and Chinese students has had her picture posted on Chinese websites with the words 'Traitor to her country' written across her face. She has received death threats from Chinese students around the world and her parents, who live in China, have had to go into hiding in fear of their lives.