Dharamshal, February 8 – Hundreds of Tibetans living-in-exile in India are to hold a freedom march from Dharamsala town starting February 11. The month-long “Feedom March” by the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) will have participants from across the country including 80 monks. Children from 70 Tibetan schools across India will also join the 535-kilometer-long trail which will traverse Punjab before culminating in New Delhi on March 10, the Tibetan Uprising Day.
Jigme Phinlay, Information Secretary of TYC, said the march aimed to highlight the human rights violation by the Chinese authorities in Tibet. “The objective of this march is to highlight the policies in Tibet which is aimed at separating the Tibetans and destroying their identity and also we have some other objectives to highlight the human and religious rights in Tibet which are not available there. As for the Tibet and Tibetans it is very important and for India also for the South Asian security to which China is posing a threat,” Phinlay said on Saturday.
The Human Rights Watch in its annual report has said that Chinese atrocities in Tibet are continuing despite a new leadership. The report has accused China of serious restrictions and repressions of the rights to freedom of expression, association and religion. Before the year ended, the Chinese passed death sentence on two Tibetan activists Trulku Tenzin Delek and Lobsang Dhondup. Dhondup was hanged on January 26, 2003, Delek has been given a two year reprieve.
The two were sentenced to death on charges of carrying out a bomb blast in Chengdu city.
Phinlay further urged the international community to pressurise Chinese authorities to release Delek.
Tibetans want the United Nations to appoint a special team to investigate alleged human rights violations in Tibet, where the last of a series of anti-Chinese revolts was crushed by Beijing’s army in 1959. In a breakthrough last year, Tibetan’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s emissaries visited China in more than a decade.
Thousands of Tibetans, including their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, fled their homeland after an unsuccessful attempt to stall Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1950.
About 130,000 Tibetan refugees are now settled in different parts of India with the Dalai Lama establishing his headquarters in the Himalayan town of Dharamsala.
