Losar 2010 Images

Check out some of the Losar images are being circulating on Facebook:

Please change your Facebook profile picture to these images and help spread them far and wide!

Losar 2010: Because I am Tibetan

Dear friends and supporters of Tibet,

Tibetans will mark Losar – the Tibetan New Year – on February 14th, 2010. In the Tibetan lunar calendar, this day marks the beginning of the Iron Tiger Year 2137, a time for change, hope, and renewal. On this day, we celebrate our history, our culture, our religion, and our future – because our history is great, our culture beautiful, our religion profound, and – in spite of our present suffering – our future is bright.

Since 2008, following the Tibetan uprising in all three historical provinces of Tibet, we witnessed an escalation in the imprisonment, torture and death of our fellow countrymen and women under Chinese rule. Because of this, last year, Tibetans united around the world and did not celebrate Losar.

This year, many Tibetans are planning to observe Losar for one reason only: because we are Tibetan. We will speak Tibetan language, wear Tibetan dress, and observe Tibetan customs, thus strengthening our identity and our spirit. Through this observance we will find new courage and opportunities to advance our struggle. In observing Losar with family and friends, Tibetans will reach for happiness, which, as much as suffering, is an integral part of a freedom movement.

Through all these years of occupation one thing is clear: the oppressor envies the spirit of the Tibetan people, which cannot be crushed by violence. This year Tibetans worldwide will nourish this spirit with the observance of Losar.

While observing this important cultural tradition, we ask Tibetans and supporters to light butter lamps and candles on their altars and in their windows on February 14th to honor the courage of the Tibetan people in Tibet who continue to resist the Chinese government’s illegal occupation of their homeland.

Tibet will be free.

With hope,

Tenzin Dorjee,                              Lhadon Tethong,
Executive Director,  SFT            Director, Tibet Action Institute

Please watch this inspiring video from Amdo, Eastern Tibet, where Tibetans, young and old, declare the myriad ways they are Tibetan.

Included in the video are these statements:
I am Tibetan because I love Tibet.
I am Tibetan because I learn Tibetan.
I am Tibetan because I love my culture.
I am Tibetan because I wear only Tibetan dress.
I am Tibetan because Tibetan blood flows in me.
I am Tibetan because my mother is Tibetan.
I am Tibetan because I sing Tibetan.
I am Tibetan because I am a Tibetan nomad.
I am Tibetan because I love my land.
I am Tibetan because I am a herder on the plateau.
I am Tibetan because I never forget Tibet.
I am Tibetan because I love my Tibetan brothers and sisters.

New Petition for the Release of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche

Sign the new petition from www.freetibetanheroes.org for the immidate release of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche.

In June 2009, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche told a community member who visited him in prison, “I am not guilty, please appeal for justice for me….call all people together and do everything possible to help me overturn the verdict”. In a remarkable act of support, 40,000 Tibetans in his community signed petitions – many signatures being in the form of thumbprints – demanding justice for their leader.  Members of Tenzin Delek’s family attempted to deliver the petitions to the Chinese central government in Beijing and Tibetans in the Lithang area gathered in town centres to appeal for his release.

The petition will be sent to Zhou Yongkang (pictured right), one of the highest ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party. In 2002, Zhou was Party Secretary in Sichuan Province, where Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was detained, and he is currently the Secretary of the Central Politics and Law Committee, the main Party instrument for overseeing implementation of the law throughout the People’s Republic of China.

Please sign the petition calling for the case against Tenzin Delek to be re-opened and, if no credible evidence is presented, for his release.

CLICK HERE to add your name to the new petition on www.FreeTibetanHeros.org

Chinese citizens share their thoughts about Google

The French website Aujourd’hui la Chine has posted candid interviews with two Chinese citizens who joined a group of Google supporters outside of the company’s headquarters in Beijing.

The interviews are in French but we’ve translated them below. It is quite striking how openly they speak about the significance of Google’s decision and the lack of freedom of expression in China.

Woman:
Today, I brought flowers to thank Google. I support them. I thank them for having spoken the truth and for having shown the reality of censorship. There are so many sites that we don’t have access to; the web is not free and this, no company ever says publicly. All the companies that are here make compromises with the government…either to access the Chinese market or to negotiate under the table. Google has spoken the truth.

Man:
Me, I’m a fan of Google. It helps me a lot with my work and my every day life. Baidu provides mostly the Chinese version of info, but because we now live in a global village, we also need international info…which isn’t the same as Chinese info. Frankly, Baidu isn’t the best.

Woman:
Baidu isn’t useful. It cooperates with the Chinese government and I don’t want this corporation to influence my day-to-day life. There’s no point in negotiating with the government. Freedom of expression isn’t negotiable, it’s a human right.

A Tibet supporter’s analysis of Google’s China stand

Josh Schrei, former SFT board chair and lifelong Tibet support posted a must-read analysis piece on Google’s decision to stand up to China in Huffington Post: The War Over Words: Why Google’s New Approach to China Should Be the Only Approach

He lays out the broader implications of Google’s move to take the power back in its relationship with China and encourages other western corporations and political leaders to do the same.

While I applaud Google for their brave decision, their “discomfort” around having to censor should have been taken more seriously the first time around, because there are very few good places such a decision can lead. Once you go down that road, it will inevitably lead to places of greater ambiguity, greater ethical dilemma, and greater concern. Luckily, free thinking minds prevailed, before the unthinkable ( for example, the company NOT disclosing China’s shenanigans in favor of keeping the relationship strong) happened. Over the next few weeks I encourage the Google-folk to maintain the firm stance they did yesterday. Bending on these issues is not an option. Too much is at stake.

Hopefully Google’s actions will start to show some US companies — and our good President, for that matter — that they do have influence with the Chinese, they do have power in that relationship…. and that we can make change by living according to principle. Moving forward, other companies MUST follow Google’s lead. Restrictions should be put in place on selling the Chinese government technology, software, or hardware that enables surveillance and digital privacy invasion. And when Beijing plays foul, in any circumstance, companies have a responsibility to call them out on it, as Google has done.

Read the full article.

SFT’s Statement on Google’s new approach to China

STUDENTS FOR A FREE TIBET

January 14th 2010

Contact: Tenzin Dorjee, +1 646-724-0748
Kate Woznow, +1 917-601-0069

Tibetans, Supporters Welcome Google’s U-Turn on China Censorship

New York – Tibetans and their supporters worldwide applauded Google’s decision on Tuesday to stop censoring Internet searches in China. This decision was made in light of recent cyber attacks from China targeting the Gmail accounts of human rights advocates in the USA, China, and Europe. As of Tuesday evening, it was reported that websites previously blocked on Google.cn were accessible, including those displaying images of the Dalai Lama and information about the March 2008 Uprising in Tibet.

When Google announced in late January 2006 that it was launching Google.cn, a version of its popular search engine custom-built to meet the Chinese government’s cyber restrictions, Students for a Free Tibet was at the forefront of the campaign to oppose this decision. We encouraged anyone who was outraged and felt betrayed by Google’s actions to  join an online boycott of the company’s services, and on Valentine’s Day more than 12,000 people “broke-up” with Google. 45,000 people sent emails to Google’s executives voicing their concern and protests were held outside Google offices worldwide.

“Access to information is a critical tool to Tibetans struggling for human rights and freedom. We hope that Google will uphold its decision not to censor search results on Google.cn,” said Tenzin Dorjee, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet. “Let this be a wake-up call to other western corporations operating in China. Colluding with Beijing’s repressive policies does not bring about positive change or greater freedoms for anyone.”

Tenzin Seldon, a regional coordinator of Students for a Free Tibet, was one of a dozen people whose Gmail accounts were attacked by Chinese hackers. “My email account was likely hacked because I am a Tibetan activist. In recent years, the Tibet movement has successfully publicized the Chinese government’s human rights abuses and unmasked its repressive and colonialist policies in Tibet. This has made us a target of email viruses and other cyber-attacks from China,” said 20-year old Seldon, whose experience was referenced in an article published by the New York Times.  “But this has only demonstrated the effectiveness of our work for human rights and freedom in Tibet.”

“While deeply disturbing, it is not surprising that Google users who advocate human rights in China were targeted by these cyber attacks,” said Nathan Dorjee, Students for a Free Tibet’s technology advisor. “Tibet activists have become all too familiar with these attacks in recent years. During the March 2008 Uprising in Tibet, we experienced a marked increase in the volume and sophistication of email and other cyber-based attacks designed to collect information and to impede our work.”

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Google reconsidering business in China over hacking

Google’s official blog announced this afternoon that Google has discovered “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China.” Apparently this attack was not just targeting Google, but also a number of other large corporations in the Internet, technology, finance, and other sectors.

However, what is most disturbing is that when Google investigated the attacks, they learned that Google users who advocate for human rights in China were being singled out…”we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.”

After even further investigation, Google found evidence that in addition to these attacks, “the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China – and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties” – again from China.

In 2006, when Google announced that they were launching a custom-built version of their search engine platform to conform with the Chinese government’s strict Internet monitoring and surveillance requirements, SFT and human rights groups worldwide condemned the decision. SFT launched the NoLuv4Google campaign, collecting thousands of pledges from people worldwide to “breakup” with Google over their decision to collude with the Chinese government.

It appears that China has done exactly what we feared they would do with this advantage, but at least – and we hope this news is true – Google is doing something about it.

In their statement, they announced:

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

This news has already hit social media sites and news media in a big way. Check out some of the coverage so far: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/12/technology/AP-US-TEC-Google-China.html?_r=2&hp

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/186781/google_could_leave_china_over_censorship_email_attacks.html

“Google has taken a bold and difficult step for Internet freedom in support of fundamental human rights,” said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy & Technology. “No company should be forced to operate under government threat to its core values or to the rights and safety of its users. We support Google for being willing to engage in this very difficult process.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/12/AR2010011203024.html?hpid=topnews

SFTers join Tibetans, Supporters in March for Climate Justice

After a grueling bus ride from London, SFT UK finally arrives in Copenhagen to join the Tibet delegation for the December 12th Climate Justice March, attended by an estimated 50,000 participants from around the world, who have gathered in Copenhagen to demand solutions to the growing global climate change crisis.

About an hour into the March, Pema from SFT UK gives an update:

Midnight in Copenhagen – some of us have arrived!

Hi everyone, it’s David again. It’s now around midnight in Copenhagen. I just arrived a few hours ago and already met some great people, climate activists as well as longtime and hardcore Tibetan activists and Tibet supporters. We hope to introduce some of them tomorrow.

Tomorrow of course is Global Day of Action. In a massive show of force people from all across the world will gather in the Danish capital demanding Climate Justice. We’ll be in the streets advocating Climate Justice for Tibetans and helping to ensure that the Tibetan people have a voice in the global discussion on climate change.

UPDATE: Pema Dolma and other SFT UK members are still stuck somewhere at the border. It seems Danish police is already flexing its muscles…but hopefully they will arrive soon!

I’m going to sign off now. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting and challenging day. Stay with us und tune in for more background information on the developments in Copenhagen. Check out the Tibet Third Pole Twitter page for more information! Twitter.com/TibetThirdPole

SFTers en route to COP15 to highlight Tibet, the Earth’s Third Pole!

Pema Dolma (SFT UK’s Campaigns Coordintor) and David Demes (SFT Germany’s National Coordinator) are en route to Copenhagen today to join the Tibet Third Pole Team at the UN Climate Change Summit and to protest China’s policies of displacing Tibetan nomads under the guise of environmental protection. Stay tuned for more from Pema and David!