Dozens of Tibetans living in Taiwan — as well as their Taiwanese supporters and a Thai supporter of the Tibetan cause — yesterday staged a 12-hour hunger strike in Liberty Square in Taipei to remember the nine Tibetans who have protested Chinese occupation of their country through self-immolation since March and they called on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to show more concern for human rights in Tibet.
Reciting Buddhist chants under the lead of several monks while sitting in front of placards bearing the names and pictures of those who sacrificed themselves for religious freedom in Tibet by setting themselves on fire, Tibetans and Taiwanese alike joined internationally coordinated action for “International Solidarity Day on Supporting Tibet” yesterday.
“People have chosen to sacrifice their lives to defend their country and their faith, and for us who are alive, it’s our inevitable responsibility to carry on their mission,” Dawa Tsering, chairman of the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama — the de facto embassy of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Taiwan — told the crowd in the Liberty Square. “I hereby also urge Buddhists in Taiwan to lend a helping hand to your fellow Buddhists who are suffering to maintain their faith in Tibet.”
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
The latest wave of protests broke out in Tibet, as well as among Tibetan communities around the world, following the arrests of more than 300 Tibetan monks at the Kirti Monastery in Sichuan Province, China, because they organized an event to commemorate the 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
Among the protests, nine people — aged between 17 and 29 — set themselves on fire.
Besides mourning his fellow countrymen, Dawa also reminded Taiwanese about dealing with China.
He said that in the 1950s, the Tibetan government had signed a 17-point peace treaty with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to guarantee freedoms of religion, Tibetans’ rights to their own culture and language as well as genuine autonomy for Tibet, “but the PRC unilaterally broke the treaty.”
“Later on, when we [the government--in-exile] negotiated with China in recent decades, we’ve only asked for genuine autonomy as outlined in the PRC constitution, but the PRC never agreed to it,” Dawa said. “This shows that the PRC is an insincere government.”
He went on to remind Taiwan that it should take the example of Tibet as a precaution, as the world watches Taiwan’s exchanges with China wondering if Taiwan could become the next Tibet.
Taiwan Friends of Tibet -president Chow Mei-li (周美里) said that so many people had sacrificed their lives to speak their minds “because we’re not doing enough to end their suffering and improve the situation.”
She called on the government to show more concern over human rights conditions in Tibet as cross-strait exchanges are enhanced.
“President Ma called on the Chinese government to follow the ideas of freedom and democracy as outlined by Sun Yat-sen during the Double Ten celebrations last week,” Chow said. “Well, this is a chance for Ma to show he was sincere about what he said, as a Straits Exchange Foundation delegation has just departed for China for a new round of cross-strait talks in Tianjin, China.”
Former deputy secretary--general of the Presidential Office, Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭), also attended yesterday’s event, expressing her admiration for those who had sacrificed their lives to try to gain freedom and human rights in Tibet.
“I know how hard it must be for their families and friends, since my husband, Deng Nan-jung [鄭南榕] also fought for the freedom of speech in Taiwan through self--immolation in 1989,” she said. “Everyone who cares about human rights should show our support and concern for the nine Tibetan martyrs, as well as for their families and friends.”
A 12-hour hunger strike began right after a brief press conference in the morning, which ended with Buddhist rituals to calm the spirits at 9pm.
Liya Chu (朱如茵), whose parents are New York-based Taiwanese restaurateurs, has been crowned the champion of US television cooking competition MasterChef Junior, after wowing the judges, including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, with a feast of fusion cuisine. In the finale of the show’s eighth season, broadcast on Thursday, Chu walked away with US$100,000 after serving a spread of spiced duck breast with scallion pancakes and miso eggplant, followed by coconut pandan panna cotta with a passion fruit coulis and sesame tuille. Chu, who was 10 years old at the time of filming three years ago, faced off against then-11-year-old Grayson Price from
A university student has gained the spotlight for an interactive map he designed detailing all of China’s military bases and installations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Soochow University music student Joseph Wen (溫約瑟), who calls himself an amateur military enthusiast, said he created the map to “help people better understand the cross-strait situation.” Wen originally posted the map online on June 14 last year, but it gained greater attention after he mentioned it during an appearance on a China Television talk show. On the show, Wen said he had gathered information on the locations from publicly available Web sites, as
RISK FACTORS: ‘We hope people can cooperate and endure it ... it is possibly the very important last mile,’ Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said Taiwan’s COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations are to remain the same next month, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The center reported 42,112 new local COVID-19 cases and 85 deaths, saying that the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has dropped to a new low this month. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said that the center is keeping COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations the same due to the local virus situation, and an increase in the number of imported cases of the new Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2, among other risk factors. Easing
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
RSS