Uighur activist and former political prisoner Rebiya Kadeer has an op-ed in today’s Washington Post expressing the Uighur peoples’ solidarity with Tibetans in their pursuit for freedom. East Turkestan, like Tibet, is under a military occupation by China and Uighurs live under intense oppression at the hands of China. Worse, East Turkestan has never received the same international attention as Tibet. Kadeer should be a household name for her principled leadership through nonviolence; despite her peoples’ largely anonymous struggle, Kadeer has been a great ally to Tibetans and she shows it in this piece.

Kadeer writes:

Because of our shared experience under the Chinese regime, Uighurs stand in solidarity with the Tibetan people and support their legitimate aspirations for genuine autonomy. The Chinese government’s fierce repression of religious expression, its intolerance for any expression of discontent, its discriminatory economic policies and its support for the movement of migrants have linked Tibet and East Turkestan and have led to the tremendous social tensions in both regions. To Beijing, any Tibetan or Uighur who is unhappy with China’s harsh rule is a “separatist.” Uighurs are also labeled “terrorists.”
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The Olympic torch arrived in Beijing yesterday, and at the end of June it will be carried through Tibet, to the top of Mount Everest and through the streets of Lhasa. From there the flame will be carried to the cities of East Turkestan, including Kashgar, a center of traditional Uighur culture, and Urumqi, the regional capital. China calls the torch relay a “journey of harmony,” hoping the unifying spirit of the Olympics will disguise the reality of its brutal rule.

But true harmony can never be achieved as long as the Communist Party enforces policies of cultural assimilation and political persecution in Tibet and East Turkestan. If China wishes to become a responsible member of the international community, its government must engage in a meaningful dialogue that addresses the sources of discontent in Tibet and East Turkestan.

Read her whole piece, which includes some basic background on China’s oppression in East Turkestan and the Uighur struggle for independence from Chinese rule.

Starting on March 10th, Tibetans around Tibet, often lead by monks and nuns, staged peaceful protests. Chinese security forces responded by cracking down on monasteries and nunneries, initially around Lhasa but elsewhere as well. In response, on March 14th, riots took place in Lhasa. There have been continual acts of protest – almost entirely non-violent – since then, but the Chinese government has repeatedly claimed that they have “evidence” that the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile orchestrated the uprising, both violent and non-violent. More recently, China has been putting forward statements from a monk who they say was an agent provocateur for the TGIE. Despite weeks of insisting they have evidence to support their claims, the Chinese government has never produced evidence that the TGIE or the Dalai Lama instigated an uprising from exile, nor have they held press conferences or produced the monk referred to in statements to answer questions about how he allegedly incited the uprising. In short, China’s statements are as proven as my statement that Hu Jintao and Jacques Rogge like to bugger goats together under a full moon (which is true, according to a goat handler who has confessed to me that he provided the goats for Hu and Rogge’s evenings of bestiality).

The latest unsubstantiated charge coming out of China is that Tibetan monks, under the guidance of the Dalai Lama, were preparing suicide squads with equipped with tens of thousands of sticks of dynamite and other small arms, which had been hidden in Lhasa. I’ve read a lot of press accounts, both in American politics and foreign news, where the journalist is dealing with spurious claims, but this Associated Press story of China’s latest made up shit evidence against the Dalai Lama is as close as I’ve ever seen an article come to the written equivalent of laughing the subject out of the room and down the hall amidst a hail of boos. The article refutes China’s claims as spurious not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six separate times:

The Tibetan government-in-exile swiftly denied the charge, and the Bush administration rushed to the Tibetan Buddhist leader’s defense, calling him “a man of peace.”

“There is absolutely no indication that he wants to do anything other than have a dialogue with China on how to discuss the serious issues there,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey said…

“Tibetan exiles are 100 percent committed to nonviolence. There is no question of suicide attacks,” Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of the government-in-exile in Dharmsala, India, said Tuesday. “But we fear that Chinese might masquerade as Tibetans and plan such attacks to give bad publicity to Tibetans.”

Experts on terrorism and security risks facing Beijing and the Olympics have not cited any Tibet group as a threat…

“There is no evidence of support for any kind of violence against China or Chinese,” said Dibyesh Anand, a Tibet expert at Westminster University in London….

Andrew Fischer, a fellow at the London School of Economics who researches Chinese development policies in Tibetan areas of China, dismissed Wu’s warnings as “completely ridiculous.”

I wonder what it’s like to be called a liar by six different sources in one article.

I think that this is far more for domestic consumption than to get international approval for their violent, murderous crackdown in Tibet. These sorts of unsubstantiated claims foment nationalism and we’re already seeing a serious uptick in Han Chinese nationalist sentiments against Tibet. I can’t possibly believe that the Chinese government thinks the world will buy their lies about Tibetan monk suicide squads sent on missions by the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Via Mikel Dunham, Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) have formed the Tibet Caucus in Congress and have invited their colleagues to join them. Here’s the text of the Dear Colleague letter Abercrombie and Rohrabacher:

Dear Colleague,

In 1941-1951, the newly established Chinese Communist regime sent military troops to occupy Tibet. Since then, Tibet has been under active Beijing rule. The occupation of Tibet by the Peoples Republic of China’s (PRC) has been disastrous for the Tibetan people. Most monasteries, religious structures and other aspects of Tibetan Buddhism and culture were either totally destroyed or damaged. There are reports that over 1 million Tibetans died during the first 30 years of PRC rule. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has mercilessly repressed policital dissent and religious freedom of Tibet.

In 1959, at the age of 24, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, fled Tibet, under threat of imprisonment and execution, and went into exile in India with a group of his followers. He remains there today, along with a Tibetan refugee community of tens of thousands, and he is still widely regarded as the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, their foremost advocate, and a figure of international stature. He has stated his willingness to accept cultural autonomy for Tibet under the Chinese Constitution. He has also been willing to negotiate with Beijing and has advanced a number of very moderate proposals regarding Tibet’s future status. The Communist regime, however has only met this attempt at accommodation with stiff opposition, and is currently instigating yet another crackdown in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics.

Congress has stood strongly by the Tibetan people as they bravely struggled for their rights. In 1991 the Congress passed a resolution stating that Tibet is an occupied country. We cannot stand silently by and watch as another wave of brutality and oppression sweeps across the country by the Beijing regime. We urge you to join the Tibetan Caucus to uphold the rights of the Tibetan people and give a voice to those that the Chinese regime has silenced.

Hopefully there’s a good enrollment in the new Tibet Caucus.

Lhasa Rising at Tibet Will Be Free runs through a spoof copy of The People’s Daily that is circulating widely in China now that includes jokes about the murder of the Dalai Lama, an earthquake killing everyone in Japan, China testing a nuclear weapon in San Francisco, China accidentally bombing the Pentagon, and China re-absorbing Taiwan. LR writes:

Ultra-nationalism doesn’t spring about in a vacuum (Rwanda, Bosnia, etc. – they were all state-incited).  The Chinese government needs to start acting as a responsible member of the world community, not like a genocidal and thuggish clique.  Unfortunately when it comes to Tibet, it seems that Beijing reverts to barbarism.

Go read the full post – there’s nothing funny about this “spoof” and given Beijing’s intense internet censorship, this “spoof” seems to at least be tacitly approved of by the Chinese government.

The AP reports:

A human rights activist says at least 60 people are still jailed in China for protests by pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989 at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. John Kamm said in a speech in Hong Kong today that between 60 and 100 such protesters remain jailed and he urged China to release them before the Beijing Olympics.

Kamm also says he’s concerned that China has released fewer names of political prisoners since 1989.

There are actually major similarities between the Chinese Communist Party’s handling of the Tiananmen Square protests. At first, the Chinese government denied that there had been any violence against the protesters, suggesting instead that the only injuries were suffered by the police. Then news and images began to filter out about the extent and violence of China’s crackdown. Even today, the official accounts of Tiananmen are vastly difference from the account given by the victims.

We’re seeing a similar scenario play out in Tibet. China continues to grossly understate the number of people confirmed killed. Only a fraction of the number that have been arrested or detained around Tibet is being reported by the Chinese government. It’s frightening to think that China continues to hold over 60 political prisoners from the 1989 protests, given that these protests happened with the world watching and those detained are presumably Han Chinese. Imagine what license the CCP may take when it comes to Tibetan monks, nuns, and lay people taken in the dead of night by military forces?

One of the clearest demands of China with regard to their crackdown in Tibet is that they must allow international observers into Tibet to meet with detainees, to monitor their treatment, and to get a full account of how many Tibetan political prisoners are currently being held. Will this happen? Almost certainly not, for what totalitarian government is interested in voluntarily submitting themselves to accountability on the global stage?

This is a picture from graffiti made today in Zurich, Switzerland. Here’s a description of what happened today at the event, which was put on by the Tibetan Youth Association of Europe.

On the occasion of the global day of action, friends and members of Tibetan Youth Association Europe held a huge graffiti event in Zurich, Switzerland. There were street-artists from different countries working the whole day and after having finished the main-piece, a 30m long graffiti with the slogan “stand up for Tibet”, the spectators could leave their own message on the wall. Many supporters and media people were present – the idea behind was to encourage the swiss people, especially the young ones, to get active and to show, that everyone can leave a message, which will be heard, seen, read. More pics will be uploaded soon on our website: www.tibetanyouth.org

You can see more pics from Zurich here.

If there was any doubt about the hopes China has for using the Olympic torch as a tool to validate their control over Tibet, one need look no farther than the route the Olympic flame is now taking. Jim Yardley of the NY Times reports:

President Hu Jintao of China waved the Olympic torch at a ceremony in Tiananmen Square on Monday, smiling broadly as balloons, streamers and confetti rose into a mostly blue sky.

Then came the uncertain part. Mr. Hu sent the torch on a 130-day journey around the globe where protests and controversy likely await. First stop on what Beijing is calling a “Journey of Harmony” will be Lhasa, the Tibetan capital still simmering from violent anti-government protests…

Earlier on Monday morning, the Olympic flame arrived in Beijing from Athens on board a specially outfitted Air China jetliner decorated with golden flames. This week, the Olympic flame is actually being split into two torches. One will be flown on Tuesday to Almaty, Kazakhstan, to begin an international relay that will cover five continents, including one stop in the United States in San Francisco.

The other torch is being flown to Lhasa and then taken to a base camp below Mount Everest. There, the flame is expected to be stored in a special lantern until May, when a team of climbers — escorted by two specially trained cameramen for Chinese state television — will attempt to carry the burning torch to the summit of the world’s highest mountain and then back down. By then, the international relay should be completed and the two torches will be reunited into one in Lhasa to begin a tour through the Chinese mainland that concludes in Beijing at the opening of the Games on Aug. 8. [Emphasis added]

As far as I can tell from the relay route, other than Beijing, the Olympic torch will spend more time in Lhasa than any other city in the rest of the world. The torch will be inside Tibet, either in Lhasa or at Mount Everest, for the duration of the international tour of the second flame. The only explanation for bringing the torch to Tibet and bringing it to Lhasa is that China wants to world to see it as the definition of their control over Tibet. The fact that there is an uprising going on in Tibet does not matter – China will use the torch as a stamp of approval and them make sure the whole world knows that they control Tibet.

Take action to oppose the torch route through Tibet.

Nick Kristof.

The No Torch In Tibet campaign has launched, complete with a petition to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge asking him to withdraw Tibet from the Olympic torch relay route.

Get the Facebook Application here.

Use ClearSpring to embed or social bookmark the Torch Smackdown animation. I already started with some posts. Digg it here and here. Reddit here.

This is obviously a very powerful animation and one that clearly represents the Chinese brutality that is being approved by running the Olympic torch through Tibet. You can get the code to put it on your blog and help it go viral at NoTorchInTibet.org.

Today’s LA Times includes a column by Philip Hersh, who calls on International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge to respond to growing sentiment among world leaders and Olympic athletes alike that the Beijing games are creating a political problem that demand attention from the IOC. Hersh writes in response to Dutch swimmer Pieter van den Hoogenband’s request for Rogge to put forward a statement from the IOC that addresses China’s more-apparent-than-ever human rights abuses:

Yes, this mixes politics and the Olympics, but that is nothing new. Remember the IOC’s admirable decision to ban South Africa because its Olympic committee hewed to the politics of South African governments who legislated racial discrimination?

The 2001 decision to give the Games to China was largely political and commercial, even if the technical quality of its bid was unquestionably excellent.

It was about giving the IOC’s global sponsors a chance to ingrain themselves in the Chinese market and about allowing the world’s most populous country to loom even larger on the global stage.

So, Jacques, you can keep defying common sense by saying the IOC is not a political organization.

How about an irrelevant one?

Hersh is right. Common sense tells us that the IOC is a political organization and the Olympics have been a political event, at least since the 1936 Games in Nazi Germany. It was there that the concept of touring the torch first took hold, as Hitler paraded the Olympic flame in an effort to glorify the Nazi regime. Now we see the Beijing government plan to run the Olympic torch up Mount Everest and through Tibet as a means of validating their military occupation. Organizations that side with dictatorships and totalitarian governments’ efforts to repress people and prevent freedom tend to end up in the same place as those foul governments – in the dustbin of history. Rogge’s silence in the face of requests from athletes, governments, and Tibetans only solidifies the perception of him and the IOC as blindly subservient to the needs and desires of the Chinese government. In that sense, his actions, as Hersh suggests, make the IOC irrelevant. If they will not embrace their political power, then they must be seen as having no power at all.