News and Views on Tibet

Tibetan rights groups show solidarity with protestors in China

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Representatives of four Tibetan rights groups stage a demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in New Delhi (Photo/Facebook)

By Choekyi Lhamo

DHARAMSHALA, Nov. 30: Following the string of mass protests in China last weekend, people from all over the globe have held protests in solidarity with the demonstrations held in East Turkestan (Xinjiang) and cities and universities in mainland China such as Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu among others. The representatives of four Dharamshala-based rights groups’ on Tuesday participated in a non-violent protest near the Chinese embassy, holding messages of solidarity and blank papers, which has become a symbol of the anti-government protests in China against the backdrop of the repressive Zero-Covid policy.

“We felt that it is a very urgent moment, given the situation on the ground in China. The action was not only to show solidarity but also to voice concern about the human rights situation inside both Tibet and China. CCP has clearly shown how they prioritize their agenda over the welfare of Chinese people,” the newly elected President of the National Democratic Party of Tibet (NDPT), Tashi Dhondup told Phayul. Representatives from the Students for a Free Tibet-India, NDPT, International Tibet Network and Tibetan Women’s Association were at the site of the demonstration.

The largest pro-independence organization Tibetan Youth Congress organized a flash mob on Wednesday to commemorate the protests in New Delhi. “It was primarily to show our support and solidarity to the anti-government demonstrators, who are calling for democratic reform and an end to Xi Jinping’s dictatorship,” TYC Centrex’s official Facebook page stated. The uproar in mainland China has given rise to a sense of hope and possibility among the exiled Tibetans as many are currently watching closely the events unfolding in China.

The NDPT President said that even though the Chinese regime is expected to continue its policies, he hoped that the protests could bring about some changes in the country. “I am sure Tibetans inside Tibet also must feel hope in the wake of protests in China. Our struggle is intertwined with our land and identity, but this is not just limited to Tibetans, but resonates with all oppressed minorities under the Chinese regime. I feel more hope now given how robust these demonstrations have turned out to be,” he further remarked.

As of Wednesday, people in the Chinese city of Guangzhou reportedly clashed with police in hazmat suits on Tuesday, according to Reuters, as authorities begin the crackdown of those who took part in the protests. While suppressed demonstrations in Tibet happen time and again, such coordinated public rallies rarely happen on this scale with a direct messaging aimed at the national leader Xi Jinping, who recently secured an unprecedented third term as President of China.

One Response

  1. The events that rocked communist China recently is extremely significant. It shows that since the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4th 1989, one got the idea that the notion of freedom and democracy are thing of the past for todays young Chinese since they are wrapped up with material abundance! Except for a few disgruntled Chinese, it all seemed hunky dory in communist China! While few western China watchers have often voiced their disquiet about Xi Jinping’s brutal anti-corruption campaign, saying, it has destabilised the CCP, there were no signs of any untoward happenings that would suggest any discontent among the Chinese people.
    The picture coming from China was that people there were busy making money and had no appetite for politics.
    Owing to this rather deceptive outlook, one got the impression, the young Chinese people have become apolitical. They were perhaps too scared to talk about politics because of the oppressive nature of the CCP rule. With the massive demonstrations in China, that facade has been dispelled and hard to believe it may seem but the young Chinese people are political and have proved even more savvy than the 1989 student’s democracy movement. In those days, no one questioned the legitimacy of the CCP. The students wanted accountability from the CCP leaders and democracy and freedom for the people. They never envisaged the ouster of the communist regime or the ouster of the incumbent leaders.
    All that has changed during these thirty three years. Today, the young students in Shanghai demanded the resignation of dictator Xi Jinping and the ouster of the Chinese communist Party (CCP). This is beyond the comprehension of many China watchers, who have been given to believe that the young generation is busy pursuing wealth rather than political freedom. Everybody has been proven wrong!
    The call for dictator Xi to Step down and the CCP to give up power are the most chilling calls that we have heard since the Chinese communists forcibly took power in China in 1949. How did the young Chinese people got such ideas of democracy, freedom of speech and rule of law after thirty three years of blanket censorship of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when tanks and machine guns mowed down kindergarten children and secondary school children along with college students in one of history’s most infamous blood bath is anybody’s guess. However, we can speculate that they have been watching the democracy movement in Hong Kong where young Hong Kongers battled with the Hong Kong based CCP thugs to suppress the movement. They would have also watched how the Burmese people who are fighting against the murderous military dictatorship. They may have also seen the democratic movement all across the authoritarian regimes in Asia like Thailand and Belarus where there were sustained revolt against the dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko. From Africa to Asia and Latin America, the winds of democracy are wafting across the world and dictators like Xi Jinping are jittery. Xi went to extreme lengths in banning the teaching of English language, wearing of foreign costumes and not buying effective vaccines such as Pfizer in order to protect the population from foreign influence!!! He became fanatically anti-western like the Taliban of Afghanistan. He became more red than Karl Marx or Lenin put together! He is a Stalinist!
    However, no matter how the vicious dictator tried to mould and brainwash the population, the urge for freedom, democracy and rule of law is a universal aspiration for all mankind and the Chinese people have demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that they are NO EXCEPTION! Until now the CCP’s propagandists, it’s apologists and influencers have zealously peddled the lie that “China is different” because of “cultural reasons” as if the Chinese people are oblivious of freedom and democracy. The late womaniser Jiang Zemin proclaimed, “democracy is not fit for China” because of of its mammoth population! He obviously forgot India which is a democracy despite the same number of population. Now, it’s crystal clear that the Chinese people want freedom, democracy and rule of law! They have expressed it in no uncertain terms under incredible danger to their lives. Many of the young people who protested in those colleges across China would be in jail, being tortured, interrogated for 24 hours at a stretch to punish them for daring to rise against the CCP thugs! Just like those citizen journalists who exposed the CCP’s duplicity during the emergence of Covet-19 in 2019, who have disappeared for good, many brave young Chinese men and women once again will disappear for good because of their daring act to stand up to dictator Xi and the evil CCP!
    China has four hundred million surveillance cameras across the country to spy on every move of its citizens. In other words, there is a camera for every seven citizen of communist China. The police are using facial recognition technology to identify the demonstrators and then call them on their phones to report to police!!! Some people will likely escape the police dragnet but it is a dangerous exercise. The people of China, occupied Tibet and East Turkistan are are caught up in a never ending cycle of violence and repression. It’s a gut wrenching situation but out of this intolerable misery rose the clarion call for a FREE CHINA! Tibetans have been calling for a FREE TIBET since we came into exile but we have never heard of a call for a FREE CHINA until now! The thunderous call by students in Shanghai on the 24th of November for dictator Xi to step down and the CCP to step down are the most daring calls we have heard since 1949 when the Communist took over China just like the Taliban took over Afghanistan! Both regimes used violence to come to power and the people of both countries have not accepted their legitimacy. Just as the Taliban is a pariah regime, the CCP is a pariah regime in equal measure. Therefore, both of them are rogue regimes that threaten the peace of the world and the rights of their citizens. Just as the Taliban uses archaic religious dogmas to suppress and oppress the people, the CCP uses archaic Marxist theories based on the whims of Karl Marx and Lenin to suppress and oppress the people! Both regimes doesn’t accept the notion of freedom and democracy nor the freedom of the individual but uses the religious and Marxist dogmas as basis of their ideology to plunge the people into perpetual slavery! This kind of fanatical ideology is a CURSE TO HUMANITY! Therefore, the perpetrators of such fanatical religious and Marxist zealotry must be annihilated for the good of humanity!
    Why is the CTA incumbent silent? Why are the people who profess to befriend the Chinese people under the umbrella of U-Mey Lam silent? Is it not time to support the cries for freedom by the Chinese people both in China and abroad? Don’t they see Chinese international students demonstrating across America including Harvard, Colombia University etc? On whose side is the CTA today? It must prove on whose side it is. Is it with the Chinese people as it has been claiming or is it with the CCP? You can’t be on both sides! Until now, it has been peddling that it is important to make friends with the Chinese people in order to fulfill our goal and even naively uttered that “we don’t regard the Chinese our enemy”! However, when it comes to the crunch to support the Chinese people, there is only a deafening silence! This shows the CTA has no coherent China policy! It’s policy is nothing more than the three fabled monkeys of Mahatma Gandhi: Say nothing. See nothing! Hear nothing!
    No wonder the Tibet issue has disappeared into oblivion!

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