SFT TV Ep. 20 (Surprise Surprise China :)

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Surprise Protest!!!!

Good for Taiwan

I was happy to read the news that Taiwan stood up to China and refused to accept the proposed torch relay route.

“In rejecting the torch route, Taiwan officials said the Taiwan-Hong Kong contiguity made the island appear to be a part of China, despite their separate status. It said that it would only participate when China stopped “downgrad(ing) Taiwanese sovereignty.” - Olympic Torch Won’t Enter Taiwan, AP, September 21, 2007

Of course, Chinese officials are furious and are accusing Taipei of politicizing the Games. But their cries won’t distract anyone from the reality that they just lost a major battle and are weaker because of it. By running the torch through Taiwan and up Mount Everest, they hoped to firmly implant the idea of One China in people’s minds. Now Taiwan has completely undermined this plan.

China is still going to run the torch through Tibet next year. I wish we Tibetans were in a position to reject it too. I know that the situation in Taiwan is different from that in Tibet, but I can’t help but imagine what a strong message it would send if the Tibetan leadership would openly denounce China’s political use of the Games and call on the Chinese government not to run the torch through Tibetan soil.

Continuing Effects of SFT’s Everest Action

Below is an article from the AP about China’s preparations to take the Olympic torch up the highest point in Tibet, Mount Everest.  The five activists mentioned, of course, are the team from SFT including our deputy director, Tendor. 

The powerful nonviolent action that the SFT team carried out on Mount Everest continues to shape how people think about the Beijing Olympics.  China wanted the torch relay to be about asserting its ridiculous ownership claim over Tibet; through a bit of political jiujitsu, these activists have made it about shining a spotlight on Tibetan independence.

The pressure on China over its occupation of Tibet is building, and it will only get stronger as the Beijing Olympics approach. 

China Plots Olympic Torch’s Final Assault on Mount Everest

AP, Thursday, September 20, 2007 16:31

BEIJING: Chinese mountaineers will carry the Olympic torch to the top of Mount Everest, making the final assault on the world’s tallest peak from a staging camp some 500 meters (yards) from the summit, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.

The head of China’s mountaineering team, Wang Yongfeng, said plans for the Everest leg of the torch relay for the 2008 Beijing Olympics were being finalized, the Xinhua report said. From base camp at 5,200 meters (17,000 feet), the torch will be taken to a staging area at 8,300 meters (27,400 feet) and from there to the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) summit, Xinhua quoted Wang as saying.

Taking the torch up Everest is one of the most technically challenging and politically charged events Beijing has planned for the Olympics. Aside from the physical challenge of climbing the mountain, which straddles the border of Nepal and Chinese-controlled Tibet, the torch had to be designed to burn in bad weather, low pressure and high altitude.

While Beijing hopes the feat will impress the world, groups critical of China’s often harsh 57-year rule over Tibet have decried the torch route as a stunt meant to lend legitimacy to Chinese control. In April, five American activists were expelled from China after unfurling a banner at Everest base camp that read, “One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008,” in a dig at the Beijing Games official slogan “One World, One Dream.”

SFT TV Ep. 18 (SFT Latin America)

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Todays episode features our fabulous Latin American Coordinator Exa!

Kids + Graffiti = Arrest, Beatings

In a normal country, kids who do graffiti get in minor trouble. In Chinese-occupied Tibet, it can mean incommunicado detention and being beaten bloody.

According to a new report by Human Rights Watch, seven Tibetan high school students are being “detained on suspicion of writing pro-Tibetan independence slogans on buildings… One of the detainees, aged 14, is reported to have been badly beaten during or after the arrest and was bleeding profusely when last seen by relatives.”

HRW continues:

police detained some 40 students on or around September 7. The students were alleged to have written slogans calling for the return of the Dalai Lama and a free Tibet the previous day on the walls of the village police station and on other walls in the village…

[...] The students’ arrests are the latest example of an increasingly harsh response from Chinese authorities to the slightest hints of dissent over issues as diverse as cultural and religious policies, forced resettlement of Tibetan herders, environmental degradation, replacement of Tibetan cadres with ethnic Chinese ones, and increased migration of ethnic Chinese settlers to traditionally Tibetan regions. Several incidents in recent months have involved clashes between Tibetan residents and police forces.

Is China so insecure in its rule over Tibet that it feels threatened by children’s graffiti? Apparently so.

And for good reason. Even Tibetan children who have never seen the Dalai Lama, and who only know life under Chinese rule, are speaking out for Tibet’s independence and the Dalai Lama’s return. These sentiments are so widespread, including in the younger generations, that China has no hope of stamping them out. Unfortunately, these children have to suffer while China continues to fight a hopeless battle.