Prague – About a hundred people today gathered in front of the Chinese embassy in Prague in protest against the Beijing government’s policy which they say violates human rights in the country, mainly in the Tibet region.
The annual peaceful protest marked the events of 1959 when China brutally suppressed an uprising in Tibetan centre Lhasa.
Participants in today’s demonstration signed a letter addressed to the Chinese ambassador and asking for the situation to be put right.
Like in the past years, the protest organisers from the Czech branch of Amnesty International failed to hand the letter over to Chinese diplomats and they cast it in the embassy’s mail box.
The demonstrators lit candles to commemorate the Tibetan victims and unfolded flags with the names of those imprisoned and executed in China. They also drew a mandala – a symbolical diagram reflecting the basic principles of Tibetan Buddhism.
The demonstrators included Minister without Portfolio Dzamila Stehlikova (Greens, SZ) and SZ deputy Katerina Jacques.
Stehlikova, as well as Environment Minister Martin Bursik (SZ), on Friday hoisted the Tibetan flag outside their respective offices, thus joining hundreds of Czech municipalities that annually express support for Tibet this way.
The organisers say they believe that their efforts are not in vain though Beijing has refused any dialogue on human rights so far. They also want to promote their aims at the summer Olympics in China next year.
The Chinese government has criticised the activities in support of Tibet which it says has always been a part of China.
