From London to Lhasa: Students for a Free Tibet UK

London, 27th March'09: Tibet Society staged a non-voilent protest outside the chinese embasssy in ahead of China's so called Serf Emancipation Day. Protesters handcuffed themselves with gags at the backdrop of a banner reading 50 yrs of Oppression, 50 yrs of Resistance.

28th March 2009, LONDON – Refusing the Chinese governments latest mass propaganda campaign of the introduction of a new national holiday called “Serf Emancipation Day” to be held annually in Tibet on the 28th of March, a coalition of young Tibetans and their supporters staged an extravagant protest in front of the Chinese Embassy this morning. Protesters were celebrating the “Smurf Emancipation Day”, dressed as smurfs, wearing smurf masks, shouting slogans such as “Smurfs don't need no re-education” and reading out the official blue Gargamel paper 17 points agreement.

A Smurf, who wore a mask and cannot be named to protect his identity, said:
 “For centuries, us Smurfs lived harmoniously in our village, picking smurfberries and smurfing happily all day long. Then Chairman Gargamel took our village and began to destroy our happy, smurfy culture. Smurf Emancipation Day is a joke; Smurfs want our freedom!”

Through creative and original campaigning, the Smurf Emancipation Day is drawing attention to the serious and critical situation in Tibet. It exposes the ridiculous lengths that China resorts to in order to legitimise its illegal occupation of Tibet. Their joke on history does not deserve to be taken seriously but provokes to be subverted. The more China tries to re-write history, the more China forces their propaganda on Tibetans, their own people and the outside world, the more this will ultimately backfire on them. They will never win the hearts of Tibetans.

In London at the G20 meeting world leaders are discussing the current financial crisis and possibly enhancing China's bargaining power in monetary based decisions it is important that we do not let the Serf Emancipation Day unnoticed.

The Smurfs have not really been Emancipated. Neither have Tibetans.

After fifty years of peaceful resistance in Tibet, the Chinese Government is still so fearful of Tibetan protests that it feels the need to create a national holiday in a desperate attempt to rewrite history.

‘Serf Emancipation Day’ is a propaganda exercise designed to portray Tibet as a place saved from a brutal dictatorship when in fact the opposite is the case. In 1950, 40,000 Chinese soldiers invaded Tibet, a country roughly the size of Western Europe, intent on exploiting its vast natural resources and gaining a strategic foothold in the region. During the Tibetan Uprising of 1959, an estimated 26,000 innocent Tibetan men, women and children were killed by the vast Chinese army, and their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was forced into exile.

Since then, the Chinese Government have ruled Tibet with an iron fist, stripping the country of its resources while jailing and torturing any Tibetans who speak up to demand their freedom. China sidesteps questions about human rights from Governments, journalists and the United Nations by claiming that Tibetans lived as ‘serfs’ prior to the invasion, and that Tibetans now benefit from the industrial and economic might of China.

But in reality, Tibetans are still being denied their basic human rights as China floods Tibet with troops in an attempt to deter dissent. 2008 saw the biggest uprising in Tibet for fifty years, as over one hundred peaceful protests spread across Tibet, involving thousands of people. These protests were met with a brutal crackdown; the indiscriminate killing of Tibetans of all ages designed to scare them into keeping silent about their rights and freedoms.

In 2009, thousands of protesters have again protested against Chinese rule in Tibet, but the media blackout imposed by the Chinese authorities has prevented many of these protests being seen by the world’s media. Eyewitness testimony and rare photos and videos from Tibet confirm that thousands have been detained under the ‘Strike Hard’ campaign, with Tibetans getting life sentences simply for sending email to the outside world.

‘Serf Emancipation Day’ is just another cynical attempt by the Chinese Government to create a smokescreen obscuring what is really happening to the Tibetan people and their ancient, unique and peaceful culture

If Tibetans really were emancipated, it would be easy for the Chinese Government to show this; they could simply allow foreign visitors, journalists and United Nations observers into Tibet. The fact that to this day they deny independent observers access to Tibet underlines the obvious question:What are they so desperate to hide?

LONDON, 10^th March ‘09 – Hundreds of Tibetans and their supporters converged upon Parliament Square and in the Houses of Parliament today from 2 p.m. to urge that the British government takes decisive action to monitor the increasing build up of Chinese military forces and human rights situation inside Tibet. The mass lobby, organised by a coalition of UK Tibet organisations (1), and Parliament Square protest marks the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan National Uprising and the one-year anniversary of the widespread protests that swept Tibet last year. The action is part of an international day of protest at major cities across the world.

China has moved thousands of soldiers and paramilitary police into Tibet in recent weeks, using overwhelming force to try to intimidate and suppress Tibetans as March 10th approaches. Campaigners say that China’s ongoing crackdown in Tibet over the past year demands a strong response from the UK government to pressure the Chinese leadership. "Gordon Brown and David Miliband must apply pressure on the Chinese government to ensure that military force is not used against those Tibetans who call for their rights and freedoms," said Terry Bettger of Students for a Free Tibet UK, adding: "It's imperative that the Chinese leadership allow free access to all areas of Tibet to the foreign media and international human rights observers. Tibetans are living in fear of lethal force from Chinese soldiers if they dare to speak out, they desperately need world leaders with the moral courage to advocate for their safety."

Photos by: Luke Ward

Notes to Editor:

(1) The Coalition of UK Tibet Support Groups consists of Students for a Free Tibet UK, Tibet Society, Tibetan Community in Britain, Free Tibet and Tibetan Youth UK

LONDON - Marking 50 years of the peaceful Tibetan struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms, a group of young Tibetans staged a small "die-in" protest in the heart of London's Chinatown today. 6 Tibetans lay on the ground for several minutes, each one holding a "MISSING" poster of a recent Tibetan or Chinese victim of Beijing's repressive policies towards those who speak out on the Tibet issue.

"With this protest today, we are showing how even after 50 years, China is still brutally silencing the voices of innocent Tibetan people, and even it's own people", said Tenzin Jigdal, representing the group Students for a Free Tibet. "We, as young Tibetans, feel so united with our brothers and sisters in Tibet at this crucial time and we share their pain. Here, in our adopted hometown of London, we want to depict the reality of what it means to be a Tibetan in Tibet today and we ask for the sympathy and support of all Chinese people."

The Tibetan MISSING cases highlighted by the protest are Paljor Norbu, an 81 year old Tibetan printer from Lhasa who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for unknown reasons in a secret trial, Norzin Wangmo, a Tibetan government worker sentenced to 5 years in prison for passing on news "through phone and internet about the situation in Tibet to the outside word", Dhondup Wangchen, a 34 year old Tibetan amateur filmmaker whose current status is unknown and Tapey, a monk who self-immolated on 27th February 2009 and whose current status is also unknown. The Chinese MISSING cases are Liu Xiaobo and Hu Jia, both Chinese human rights activists who have been vocal in their support of Tibet and are both currently in some form of detention.

"These 6 cases make me feel immensely sad about the plight of both Tibetan and Chinese people who are not free to speak out", continued Tenzin Jigdal, "The Chinese government needs to respect Tibetans and their wishes as well as those of their own people and listen to their voices instead of detaining and imprisoning them. We demand to know the fate of these 6 individuals and indeed all the Tibetans and Chinese who have gone missing in the last year."

Photos: Luke Ward and Tom Swain

photo captions:
    protesters performing a die-in
    protesters holding missing posters of chinese and tibetan dissidents

MSPs, Edinburgh residents, Tibetans and students all congregated outside St John's Church on Edinburgh's main shopping street for the opening of a new mural this Saturday to mark the 50th anniversary of Tibetan Uprising Day.

The mural depicts a Tibetan Monk being shot for calling 'Free Tibet'. Last year a similar mural depicting a monk in Tiananmen square was defaced with a spray can. The painting marks 50 years since the Dalai Lama was forced into exile and one year since the unrest and crackdown in Tibet in March last year.

Iain Thom, Edinburgh resident and board member of Students for a Free Tibet UK who hit the headlines before the Beijing Olympics by scaling a floodlight outside the Bird's Nest stadium and unfurling a pro-Tibet banner, will be present and said,

“Last March we saw a brutal crackdown by the authorities in Tibet. This March marks 50 years of resistance and struggle for Tibetans. We want our politicians to take a stand and call on the Chinese Government to stop the violence against peaceful protest and allow an independent UN delegation into Tibet.”

Mike Pringle MSP said, “Tibetans have been fighting for their freedom for 50 years. I sincerely hope that Gordon Brown managed to talk about Tibet and human rights with Barack Obama at his meeting this week.”

This event is timed to mark 'Tibetan Uprising Day' which remembers March 10th 1959 when thousands of Tibetans took to the streets of the capital Lhasa to protest the invasion of their country by China. Within weeks, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government escaped to safety exile in India and thousands of Tibetans were killed in the aftermath of the Uprising. This year is the 50th anniversary of Tibetan Uprising Day and the one year anniversary of last years protests and uprising.

News coverage: http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Mural-marks-anniversary-of-Tibetan.5046465.jp

LONDON – Several hundred Tibetans and their supporters turned out to mark Tuesday’s 50th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising as concern about the huge military build-up of Chinese forces in Tibet deepens. The march began at the Chinese embassy with a packed rally at Trafalgar Square hosted by the Coalition of UK Tibet Support Groups (1).

The Coalition of UK Tibet Support Groups are running a number of events to mark the 50th Anniversary, including the London premiere of Fire Under the Snow Sunday night (8th March) at the Prince Charles Cinema in London’s Leicester Square. The film is an adaptation of Palden Gyatso’s moving life story and the suffering and torture he endured at the hands of the Chinese government. On Tuesday 10th March Tibetans and supporters will participate in a mass lobby of the UK Parliament to directly engage their elected representatives.

Notes to Editor:
(1)    The Coalition of UK Tibet Support Groups consists of Tibet Society, Students for a Free Tibet UK, Tibetan Community in Britain, Free Tibet and Tibetan Youth UK

                   Palden Gyatso (second right) lead the march through the streets of London

Tibetans staged a 'die-in' to draw attention to those Tibetans killed and disappeared in the recent crackdowns.

                                                                                                                             (Photos: Stevie Farrell)

28^th February'09, Leeds: Tibetans and Tibet supporters in Leeds gathered outside Art Gallery in Leeds City Centre from 2 pm to 4 pm and held a vigil in solidarity with the Tibetans inside Tibet.  There were students and supporters from Lancashire, Sheffield and from Leeds University Free Tibet Group.

With Tibetan flags and portrait of His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the backdrop, candles were lit and prayers were held. This was followed by flyer distribution to inform the audience on the plight of Tibet.

The No Losar movement, initiated by the Tibetans inside Tibet to mourn and remember the brave Tibetans who lost their lives in the peaceful uprising last year, has gained momentum and significance amongst the Tibetan community in different parts of the world.

                                                                                                                            (Photos: Stevie Farrell)