Worldwide Solidarity Actions for Tibetan Students in Tibet
Beginning on October 19th, thousands of Tibetan students in Tibet and China took to the streets to demand “Equality of Races and Freedom of Language.” The students were protesting the Chinese government’s plan to replace Tibetan by Chinese as the medium of instruction.
Below are photos and videos from solidarity actions and lobbying initiatives held around the world. More actions have taken place and are being organized in Dharamsala, Mundgod, Bylakuppe, Belgium, Holland, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, New York, San Francisco, Portland, Utah, Wisconsin, Vermont, and many more.
Please email us with photos and videos of your solidarity actions or to request resources.
Madison, WI: Solidarity Video
The members of Madison SFT and RTYC Wisconsin compiled this video with the help of local children to show their support for the students in Tibet.
Chicago, IL: Protest & Solidarity Rally
December 2, 2010: About 50 Tibetans protested in front of the Chinese Embassy in Chicago against China’s recent educational reform. This protest was organized by the Wisconsin Tibetan Association of Madison. The RTYC (Regional Tibetan Youth Congress) and SFT (Students for Free Tibet) of Madison participated in the protest as well. Members of the Chicago Tibetan Community joined the protest.
Dharamsala, India: Tibetan Language Rights Solidarity Protest
On October 31st, Students for a Free Tibet India held a candlelight march and rally in solidarity with Tibetan students in Tibet.
New York City: Solidarity Rally
On October 20th, around 60 students and Tibetan community members gathered in NYC’s busy Union Square park to send a message of solidarity to the thousands of Tibetan students who have protested for “Equality of Race and Freedom of Language.” More from Young Tibet News.
Bard College, New York: Photo campaign and discussion
St. Paul Minnesota: “Rebkong Lobby Day”
On October 25th, members of the Tibetan community, the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, and SFT delivered 28 letters to both the House and Senate – the Governor and Attorney General. Local Minnesotans ages 7 to 70 yrs stood in solidarity with the students in Tibet. More from the Tibet Express.
Portland, Oregon: Protest and Solidarity Rally
On October 29th, dozens of Tibetans and Tibet supporters, joined by SFT Portland State, came together in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square to show their solidarity with Tibetan students in Tibet. Participants carried the letters of the Tibetan alphabet, passed out flyers, and held signs and banners.
Middlebury College, Vermont: Photo campaign
San Francisco, California: Protest at Chinese Consulate.
On October 29th, members of the Tibetan community of San Francisco protested in front of the Chinese consulate to show their solidarity with Tibetan students in Tibet.
Liu Xiaobo: “Han Chinese Have No Freedom, Tibetans Have No Autonomy” By Woeser
High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser that was originally written for broadcast on Radio Free Asia on October 13, 2010 in Lhasa and posted on her blog on October 18, 2010. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo on October 8, 2010, created international headline news. In this article from her blog, Woeser congratulates Liu Xiaobo and recounts his articles and views on Tibet. As she notes in her article, Woeser has known both Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia, for several years and, as noted before on High Peaks Pure Earth, Woeser was the only Tibetan amongst the original signatories of Charter 08.
Tibetan Students in Beijing Protest for Tibetan Language; Tibetan Netizens Show Support Online
Now the protests have spread to Beijing where over 500 Tibetan students from the Tibetan Studies department of Minzu University of China (formerly known as the Central University for Nationalities) held a protest on the campus today (October 22, 2010) at noon. Tibetans on popular social networking sites such as RenRen and MyBudala have been posting photos and status updates about the protests.
The above status update in Tibetan says: "Today at 12, over 500 students protested at Minzu University of China about freedom of language."
This is the first protest by Tibetan students of Minzu University of China since a vigil was held on March 17, 2008, in remembrance of those who lost their lives in the protests of March 2008. The following photos of the protest in Beijing were posted on RenRen by a Tibetan student:
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| [*This photo was added to this blogpost on October 23] |
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| "Equality of nationality, Freedom of language" |
Don’t Imprison Our Language!
Tibetan Students in Chabcha (Amdo) protest, October 21st.
Three days back, as we began SFT’s nonviolent activist training for Tibetan and Indian students gathered at a serene farmland in lower Dharamsala, we received the electrifying news that thousands of students were protesting in Rebkong, Amdo in eastern Tibet. Around 2,000 students were staging a protest march to the Mahlo prefecture office, opposing Chinese government plans to replace Tibetan language with Chinese as the medium of instruction in their schools. Yesterday, we received further reports from Tibet that the protests have spread to Tsolho, another part of Amdo. This time the number of demonstrators has swelled to 8,000!
Surprisingly, photos and video of the protests were sent out immediately and published by RFA. The students carried signs that read: “Equality of Races, Freedom of Language.”
We cannot help but marvel at the serendipity of the event, which occurred on the same day that students and trainers from all over India, Nepal, UK, US and Canada have gathered here to study the art of nonviolent resistance. The Tibetan students in Rebkong, though not formally schooled in nonviolent resistance, were brilliantly practicing a powerful tactic of nonviolent force: staging a peaceful protest march to highlight and deter an impending injustice! Watch or read more at http://rfa.org.
These protests are without a doubt the largest in Tibet since the 2008 uprising, also known as the Maroon Revolution. In fact, these protests are nearly as big as the Chinese demonstrations in August against Beijing’s attempts to replace Cantonese broadcasts with Mandarin broadcasts in Guangzhou. While the Chinese authorities’ response to the Cantonese protests in Guangzhou was a mild detention of one person for five days, it remains to be seen how they will respond to the Tibetan protests.
We urge Tibetans and supporters around the world to phone or email their political representatives and ask them to press the Chinese government to allow Tibetans to study in their mother tongue, a plain and simple universal right. We encourage Tibetan speakers to take simple and creative actions to promote the Tibetan language by installing Tibetan typing software on their computers, or by downloading Tibetan ringtones on their phones, or by displaying Tibetan alphabets in prominent places, etc.
While information seeps out of Tibet on this ongoing movement to protect our language, let us pray and take action for the safety of the Tibetan students participating in these protests. In spirit and in action, we are with you.
Woeser’s Acceptance Speech: International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award, 2010
Woeser posted the speech on her blog on October 20, 2010, a day after the awards ceremony took place in New York. As reported by the media, Woeser was unable to attend the ceremony as the Chinese government refuses to grant her a passport.
Woeser's acceptance speech was translated into English by A. E. Clark of Ragged Banner. For those who have not yet read Woeser's poetry, High Peaks Pure Earth recommends the volume published by Ragged Banner titled "Tibet's True Heart".
Ladies and Gentlemen:
My heartfelt thanks to the International Women's Media Foundation for its Courage in Journalism Award. Since the Chinese government will not give me a passport, I am unable to come and accept this honor in person. But my spirit cannot be locked away, and I feel I am with you now, touched by your kind encouragement.
I am not really a journalist or media person in the traditional sense. In this Age of the Internet, I have taken my books, my blog, my regular commentaries for radio, Twitter, and Facebook — as well as a camera, a camcorder, and the interviews I give reporters — and combined them into a new medium: a one-person medium. I began deliberately using this approach in March of 2008. At that time, protests which had spread across Tibet were being violently suppressed, but the Chinese government was using its monopoly on information to make sure people could hear only its distorted account, blasted at high volume. The might of this world was asserting its power over the facts, and I realized that unless I could find some way, working by myself, to record what was happening and get the news out, the anguish of an entire people would vanish forever behind a veil of darkness. History would be rewritten; memories would be buried; our descendants would never know the sacrifices their ancestors had made.
I was then in Beijing, the imperial capital. Using both traditional and modern tools of communication, I contacted people on the scene and wove a network that covered all the Tibetan lands. Some of my sources were acquaintances; others I had never met. With their help I gathered factual accounts of what was happening, and each day posted the information to my blog so that the world could know, in real time, how Tibet was being engulfed in blood and fire. At that time I was the only channel through which Tibetans inside the PRC could make their voices heard, and my blog received several million hits, as the work of one person standing against the propaganda machine of a colossal State.
I want to thank these friends of mine, though I cannot mention their names; we supported and encouraged each other through those hard days. Though we found ourselves in different places, we had all become witnesses and reporters at the same epochal moment in history. I remember what a young Tibetan told me from Lhasa late one night, just after the protests erupted: “Although we often have the words 'nationality' and 'Tibet' on our lips, when things get really bad it's usually the humblest stratum of the common people who take the risks and step out in front. They're a lot braver than we are.” But in fact this young man was seized for taking photographs and was detained for nearly two months.
My blog was destroyed by hackers and my Skype account was hijacked. Each day was like combat, with events in constant flux as on a battlefield. Again and again, my friends helped me keep going. In the face of constant threats from the political police, I packed a small bag with articles I would need in prison and kept it within reach.
Later I traveled through the Tibetan region taking notes and pictures. The entire journey I was followed and repeatedly intercepted and questioned. The police limited my contacts with Tibetans and interrogated any who had dealings with me. They were trying to make me someone no one would talk to. While I was in Lhasa, a squad of police raided my mother's apartment and took me away after searching my room and confiscating my materials. It was on account of the Beijing Olympics which were then underway. Eventually they let me go. This experience is actually not unusual for
Tibetans living under dictatorship.
Even now, every kind of inhumanity and injustice is still being visited upon Tibet. Many outstanding people, innocent people, have been arrested and sentenced and are suffering unimaginable torment. I will keep my one-person media operation going, for it is the weapon of the powerless. To be sure, this weapon consists of the written word; it rests on principles of nonviolence and noncooperation; it draws its energy from our religion, traditions, and culture, as well as the broken condition to which we have been reduced; these provide the strength with which we resist oppression and are the reason why I will never give up or compromise. The support that comes in from every side, including from you, is a lasting source of my courage.
Tashi Delek!
August 28, 2010
Beijing
- pato
on "On Lies": A Poem by Tibetan Female Blogger Namtso
- Language Awards, Lhakar, and Tibetan Education « Lhakar on Language Awards, Lhakar, and Tibetan Education
- polo shirts
on NEW PHOTOS, NEW PROTESTS, AND A NEW GENERATION
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