Attention, Attention: SFT in the News

Here’s a brief digest of some of the press coverage the banner hang in Beijing has received, as well as the best quotes SFTers have provided on the railway.

Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 7/1/2006

Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, said in a statement: “China plans to use the railway to transport Chinese migrants directly into the heart of Tibet in order to overwhelm the Tibetan population and tighten its stranglehold over our people.”

BBC News, 7/1/2006

But exiled Tibetan Lhadon Tethong said the railway was “engineered to destroy the very fabric of Tibetan identity”.

“China plans to use the railway to transport Chinese migrants directly into the heart of Tibet in order to overwhelm the Tibetan population and tighten its stranglehold over our people,” he said on a Free Tibet Campaign statement.

Tim Johnson, McClatchy News, 6/30/2006

“It’s the first direct, low-cost, quick and easy way for migrants to arrive in central Tibet,” said Lhadon Tethong, executive director of the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet. “This will lead to the overwhelming of Tibetans and competition for scarce jobs. The eventual idea is the dilution of Tibetan language, culture and identity.”

Pro-independence groups plan to wear black armbands in protest and demonstrate outside Chinese embassies Saturday, a campaign they call “Reject the Railway.”

Today, three women from the United States, Canada and Britain were detained after unfurling a banner at Beijing’s main train station reading, “China’s Tibet Railway, Designed to Destroy.”

Jehangir S. Pocha, Boston Globe, 7/1/2006

The protests highlighted concerns among the activists and among Tibetan exiles that China will use the 710-mile-long railway, which is opening today, to consolidate its grip over Tibet.

Kate Woznow, a spokeswoman for the Free Tibet Campaign, said all the Beijing protesters were foreigners because of the risks for Tibetans to speak out in China and in Tibet. “We wanted to send a message globally that Tibetans are opposed to the launch of the Chinese-Tibetan railway,” she said.

Sarah Jackson-Han, Radio Free Asia, 6/30/2006

On June 30, three activists on a private trip to China—from Britain, Canada, and the United States—scaled the façade of the Beijing railway station to hang a banner reading “China’s Railway: Designed to Destroy,�? Tenzin Dorjee, spokesperson for Students for a Free Tibet, told RFA’s Tibetan service.

Joseph Kahn, International Herald Tribune, 6/30/2006

“The overwhelming opinion among Tibetans is that the railway will consolidate Chinese control and bring in huge numbers of Han Chinese,�? said Tenzin Tsundue, an independent Tibetan writer and activist who lives in India.

“It will mean less employment and more destruction for Tibetans, not more opportunity,�? he said.

On Friday, three women from the United States, Canada and Britain were detained briefly after they climbed through a second-floor window at Beijing’s main train station and unfurled a black-and-white banner that read, “China’s Tibet Railway, Designed to Destroy.�?

Joe MacDonald, Associated Press, 7/1/2006

But activists complain the railway will bring an influx of Chinese migrants, damaging Tibet’s fragile ecology and diluting its unique Buddhist society. They say most of its economic benefits will go to migrants from the east.

On Friday, three women from the United States, Canada and Britain were detained after unfurling a banner at Beijing’s main train station reading, ”China’s Tibet Railway, Designed to Destroy.”

Protests were planned Saturday outside Chinese embassies around the world.

Lindsay Beck, Reuters, 7/1/2006

Tibetans in Dharamsala in northern India, where the Dalai Lama presides over a governent in exile, called Saturday a “black day” for Tibet. They have launched a Web site, www.rejecttherailway.com, in protest.

On Friday, three overseas activists of Students for a Free Tibet unfurled a banner at Beijing’s main railway station reading “China’s Tibet Railway: Designed to Destroy.” Police quickly detained them.

Alexa Olesen, Associated Press, 6/30/06

On Friday, three women from the United States, Canada and Britain were detained after unfurling a banner at Beijing’s main train station reading, “China’s Tibet Railway, Designed to Destroy.”

Pro-independence groups plan to wear black armbands in protest and demonstrate outside Chinese Embassies on Saturday, a campaign they call “Reject the Railway.”

Geoffrey York, Globe and Mail, 6/30/2006

Tibetan students are planning protests at Chinese embassies around the world when the first passenger train officially embarks on the 4,064-kilometre, 48-hour journey from Beijing to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.

The protesters say the railway will devastate the environment, jeopardize Tibetans’ culture, assimilate their people and lock them under Beijing’s tightening grip.

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