SFT UK REPRESENT!

Along with UK-based Free Tibet Campaign, SFT UK took the lead in a high-profile political theater protest against Canadian company Bombardier at the “InfraRail 2005 Exhibition,” a railway industry trade show that took place in Manchester on Thursday.

SFTers everywhere have been targeting Bombardier for its partnership with the Chinese government in the ghastly China-Tibet railway, which the Dalai Lama recently remarked would be responsible for “cultural genocide” of the Tibetan people.

They apparently made quite a stir inside the exhibit before being ejected by security. To read more, check out the SFT UK page with the Press Release.

Rally at the UN

Thursday was a remarkable day of action for SFT. Over one hundred Tibetans rallied outside the United Nations alongside activists for East Turkestan, the Falun Gong, Togo, Ethiopia, and Kashmir. After five hours of chanting, shouting, singing, and speeches (including a powerful one by Uyghur political prisoner Rebiya Kadeerr), we marched all the way across Manhattan, along 42nd Street to the Chinese Consulate, chanting all the way. Our police escort even helped us out by honking to the beat of our slogans! Hu Jintao, the UN, and all of New York were loudly reminded that we will not rest until Tibet is free. Check out some pictures below

Chinese Welcoming Bush to NYC

One odd bit from yesterday’s activities at the Waldorf was the presence of a Chinese military style marching band as part of the welcoming committee for Hu Jintao. To put it bluntly, they were horrible — though it was curious to see them there to welcome President Bush’s arrival too. Sorry if the quality is bad, they’re from my camera phone
Matt

The beauty products from the skin of executed Chinese prisoners

Okay *this* is just too much:

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.

Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company’s products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is “traditional” and nothing to “make such a big fuss about”.
…
He suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. “In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that western countries can make such a big fuss about this,” he said. Speaking from his office in northern China, he added: “The government has put some pressure on all the medical facilities to keep this type of work in low profile.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1568622,00.html

Live Blogging from Waldorf Astoria…

I’m at the corner of 53rd and Park. We’re all sitting around wondering “Where’s Hu?” and the only answer is “Hu Knows?”. He was supposed to be here at 11am, but as of 4pm (when I finally showed up) he is still in transit, or maybe he’s taking a nap somewhere.

In the meantime, the Chinese Foreign Minister (we suspect) decided to make a visit to the loyal Chinese demonstrators on the street. Little did he know there were plenty of Tibetans and Falun Gong waiting in the midst to make his press opportunity a bit unpleasant. Kusho-la, Tendor, and Matt were right at the front…see the link below to a quicktime movie (you may need to download quicktime here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime) that i just filmed of the encounter.

Click here for the Quicktime movie of “Chinese official press moment spoiled”. Its 19MB so it may take a little while to download. You may want to save it to disk.

Hopefully, Hu will arrive soon. I may not be here to cover it, but there will be plenty of other folks around to tell the tale later…