Human Rights Network for Tibet and Taiwan members and other Tibetan rights advocates yesterday called on the Chinese government to free Tibet and allow the Dalai Lama to return home, as they launched a series of events to mark the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising.
On Saturday, the group is to hold a march to commemorate the failed Tibetan rebellion against Chinese rule on March 10, 1959, which led to violent crackdowns and the Dalai Lama’s exile, network director Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡) said at a news conference outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
The march is to begin at 1pm at Taipei’s MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing Station and finish at Taipei 101, she said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
An exhibition commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 2008 Tibetan uprising opened yesterday at Liberty Square in Taipei and is to run through Wednesday next week, she added.
“It has been almost 60 years since the [1959] uprising and many Tibetans remain exiled. It is not just the Dalai Lama, all Tibetan exiles should be able to return to their home,” said Indian-born Tashi Tsering, who is head of the Taiwanese Tibetan Welfare Association.
“I am a second-generation Tibetan exile. I have never been to my own country,” he said.
Tibetans need to being allowed to learn their language and practice their traditional culture in their own country, he added.
The Chinese government has been suppressing minority groups in China in every possible way: culture, languages, arts, environment and Internet censorship, said New Power Party Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐), who is head of the Taiwan Parliamentary Group for Tibet.
However, few people have experienced the level of Chinese government suppression that Tibetans have, he said.
The increasingly authoritarian government of Chinese President Xi Jin-ping (習近平) is putting great pressure on all nations in the Asia-Pacific region, and Taiwan, having suffered similar suppression, must stand up for any oppressed minority groups, he added.
“We will continue to work for Tibetan rights through the Taiwan Parliamentary Group for Tibet and by collaborating with the Tibetan parliament-in-exile in Dharamshala, India, as well as the US, Canada, Japan and European countries,” Lim said.
Tibet was invaded by China in 1949 and fell under Chinese rule in 1951 after the defeated Tibetan government signed the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with Beijing, Lim said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS