News and Views on Tibet

Tibet activists arrested in protest outside San Francisco Chinese Consulate

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Among the throngs of protesters arrested in recent weeks were three activists who chained themselves to two concrete lions outside the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco. But rather than protesting the U.S. war on Iraq, they were denouncing China’s actions in Tibet.

About 15 others staged a mock trial “symbolizing genocide of Tibetan people in general” and the execution of Lobsang Dhondup in particular. Dhondup, a former Tibetan monk, was executed earlier this year after a secret trial found him guilty in connection with a bombing in the Sichuan province. Another monk, Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, is being held on the same charges and also has been sentenced to death.

“It’s unthinkable that monks would engage themselves in bombing. It’s just a premeditated tactic by the Chinese,” said Topden Tsering, president of the San Francisco Tibetan Youth Congress.

Tsering said the event was held March 26 to commemorate the two-month anniversary of Dhondup’s death and that more than 300 protesters turned out in major cities around the globe.

The protest in San Francisco lasted less than an hour, and police cut the protesters’ chains and arrested them.

Tsering said more such protests were a certainty.

“We are grateful to send a message to China, that on one hand tries to be on the side of morality by opposing war in Iraq but at the same time participates in genocide in Tibet,” he said.

Hong Lei, a spokesman for the consulate, said Chinese officials find the protesters’ concerns and demands “wrong.”

“The two people they mentioned are actually criminals who violated laws in China who were sentenced to death by the court for inciting the split of the country and scheming explosions,” he said. “The evidence is quite true and substantial according to our information.”

The trial was secret, he said, because state secrets were involved.

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