By Phurbu Thinley

Dharamsala, August 14: Tibetan Solidarity Committee today announced Tibetans exiles and supporters of Tibet’s cause around the world were to sit for a 12-hour fasting on August 30 in their effort to resolve the current crisis in Tibet.

Tibetans, including Buddhist monks and nuns and school children are asked to observe the fasting in their respective community centres, monasteries, nunneries and school auditorium respectively.

Along side fasting, the committee also urged Tibetans and supporters to simultaneously recite prayers primarily for world peace, for the well being and long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and for the Tibetan victims of Chinese oppression.

The committee has asked all Tibetans to recite as many as possible the “Prayers for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Guru Prayers, Dhen-pai Nga-dra, Dhen-stik Mon-lam (Prayer of Truth), Prayer of 21 Taras, Six-syllable Mani” mantra and invocation prayers of deities Palden Lhamo and Nechung.

Tibetan Solidarity Committee is an emergency body constituted by the Kashag (Cabinet) and Chitue (Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile) to resolve what they call, “the present crisis in Tibet”.

The Seven-member Tibetan Solidarity Committee was formed with the objective to “plan, inform, coordinate and lead the movement in Exile in unity, one voice and one message to resolve the present crisis in Tibet” after Chinese authorities reacted with violent crackdown on Tibetan unrest that broke out across Tibet since March this year.

The committee is headed by Speaker and Deputy Speaker and three other members of the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile and two Cabinet Ministers of the Central Tibetan Administration.

"Those Tibetans, Tibetan supporters and justice and peace loving people of the world, who cannot go and join the masses to observe fast and prayer service," Mr Karma Choephel, the speaker of the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile, said, "can observe it at their own home".

For Tibet supporters and others non-Tibetans and those who do not recite Tibetan prayers, Mr Choephel said one could observe silent fast or they could recite prayers and hymns of their respective faiths.

Among other things, Mr Choephel said, the fasting and prayers, based on Tibetan Buddhist belief, were aimed at cleansing the “negative actions of all those Tibetans who have died fighting for their political cause in the aftermath of March protest in Tibet this year” and to “instantaneously relieve those Tibetan who are still enduring atrocities under the brutal Chinese oppression from their sufferings, and for the truth of Tibetan issue to prevail soon”.

Tibetan solidarity committee has been organizing number of peaceful activities to highlight situation inside Tibet in the wake of China’s military crackdown on Tibetan demonstrations.

According to the committee’s latest information, more than 216 Tibetans have been killed, over a thousand injured and more that 5,972 are arrested aftermath the Chinese military clampdown on Tibetan demonstrations since March 2008.

The committee says it will continue to function till the “ongoing critical situation inside Tibet” is effectively resolved.

In their effort to resolve the “crisis” in Tibet, the committee has urged the United Nations and the International community and organizations to meet the following urgent needs:
1. To immediately send an independent international fact-finding mission into Tibet
2. To exert pressure on the PRC government to allow unfettered access to free press in whole of Tibet
3. To pressure the PRC to end the brutal killings in the whole of Tibet
4. To immediately release all the arrested and imprisoned Tibetans
5. To extend immediate medical assistance to those injured Tibetans
6. To allow free movement of people and provide access to daily needs

Click Here to read the full text of Tibetan Solidarity Committee's Press statement

For more information, log on to: www.stoptibetcrisis.net / www.tibetanmovement.org