Last week, Bjork spoke out for Tibetan independence at a concert in China. She ended her song “Declare Independence” by shouting “Tibet, Tibet! Raise your flag!” Well, the message got out. This video was shot yesterday in Toronto at a protest at the Chinese consulate in commemoration of the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising. The Students for a Free Tibet Canada blog reports:

Towards the middle of the protest in front of the Chinese Consulate Building, a couple of youth snuck behind the walls and managed to get to the rooftop of the building. The boys, one of them of minor age, then proceeded to bring the flag of China down from the pole, and hang the Tibetan flag in its place. This spontaneous action further fueled the energy of the protesters below, as they cheered and applauded the youth for symbolically undermining China’s authority over its own building, and in effect, over Tibet. The boys didn’t manage to completely raise the Tibetan flag, but their inspiring and courageous act of dissent enraptured the emotions of the protesters, many of whom held their breath when the two youth were eventually detained by the Consulate officials. No visible damage of property was inflicted on the building, save for a roughed up Chinese flag, and the youth were compliant with the Chinese consulate officials who stopped the action and detained the two.

The protesters were very worried about the welfare of the two youth and demanded that they be released from the Chinese Consulate building. Some of the marchers who were close to the youth were visibly agitated and were told to calm down by the organizers lest they jeopardize the situation of the two detained. Eventually, the police in the area informed the organizers that the boys wouldn’t be released unless the protesters disbanded and vacated the street and surrounding area. At the urge of the various organizers, the marchers began to stow away the flags and placards and call it a day. At the conclusion of the rally, when most of the protesters had left, the police informed the waiting organizers that the two youth will have to be investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) because “the two had violated the laws on international soil, and hence, the Toronto police had no authority on the matter, and it will be left up to the RCMP to investigate and carry out further actions.” At the time of this reporting, the boys are still under investigation by the RCMP, and are being charged, the details of which are not available at the moment.

I’ve since heard that the two youths were released by the RCMP.

This is an inspiring act of non-violent protest that speaks to the undying will of Tibetan refugees and exiles to restore their independence. It was a spontaneous protest on a day when around a thousand Tibetans and their supporters marched in Toronto on the Chinese consulate. Right now, this video is circulating the Tibetan exile community and bringing tears to the eyes of many viewers at the proud patriotism of these young Tibetans.

The BBC has a good article about the global actions taken place on Tibetan National Uprising Day. It does a good job of showing the global scale of the commemoration.

Also, the Dalai Lama’s annual statement on March 10th is very powerful and hard-hitting. One passage that stood out:

In Tibet today, due to the Chinese governments numerous actions, driven as they are by a lack of foresight, the natural environment has been severely damaged. And, as a result of their policy of population transfer the non-Tibetan population has increased many times, reducing native Tibetans to an insignificant minority in their own country. Moreover, the language, customs and traditions of Tibet, which reflect the true nature and identity of the Tibetan people are gradually fading away. As a consequence, Tibetans are increasingly being assimilated into the larger Chinese population. In Tibet, repression continues to increase with numerous, unimaginable and gross violations of human rights, denial of religious freedom and the politicisation of religious issues. All these take place as a result of the Chinese governments lack of respect for the Tibetan people. These are major obstacles the Chinese government deliberately puts in the way of its policy of unifying nationalities which discriminate between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples. Therefore, I urge the Chinese government to bring an immediate halt to such policies.

Earlier today the Chinese Railway Construction Corporation held two initial public offerings, in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and raised over $5.4 billion to fund construction projects. Yale University contributed $50 million from their endowment as one of the nine “cornerstone investors” in the IPO.

China Railway Construction Corporation is a state owned company that is responsible for building a controversial railroad between Tibet and Beijing. The Lhasa-Beijing railroad was subject to major opposition by Tibetan exile and human rights groups, as it has been used as a major funnel to bring Chinese migrants into Tibet, part of a continuation of China’s policy of population transfer to dilute the percentage of Tibetans in their own land. The CRCC is currently planning an extension to create another major link between Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, and China, a move that will further increase the population transfer into Tibet. The other major beneficiary of the Lhasa-Beijing railroad, incidentally, has been the People’s Liberation Army. The PLA has more troops stationed in Tibet than any other region in the PRC.

Yale’s investment in the CRCC is deeply troubling. They are doing so in contravention to common investment practices at educational institutions. Two years ago, Yale divested from their investments in Sudan, which shows that they’re not immune from pressure from human rights groups and are capable of using their huge endowment to do morally responsible things.

I know some Yale alumni are up in arms about this investment and I’m sure as the news of it grows, students and alumni will continue to let the University know what they think about their donations being used to fund a Chinese companies expansion in Tibet. The sad thing is that because Yale was involved in the IPO, their $50 million has gone directly to the Chinese government’s railway company. Divestment is crucial, but as I understand it, that’s money that Yale can’t get back.

It’s also interesting to note that Yale’s partnership in this IPO was only announced in late February, giving students and human rights groups very little time to organize against it. At the time, the Yale Investments Office declined to comment on the move to the Yale Daily News. I think that this stems from lessons learned by China about how to handle IPOs, knowing their American partners will face withering public criticism for getting in bed with businesses that exploit Tibet or hasten the cultural genocide of the Tibetan people. In 2000, the PetroChina IPO had its value reduced by $7.2 billion following a prolonged campaign by Tibetan groups, labor unions, and human rights organizations against the company. In 2004 BP divested from PetroChina, again following intense pressure from Tibetan groups like Students for a Free Tibet. The best way to avoid such pressure, judging by how Yale and the Chinese Railway Construction Corp. handled this IPO, is to announce it only days before it takes place to avoid scrutiny and response from the constituencies affected by it.

For more on the China-Tibet railway and what Tibetan groups have done to protest it over the last number of years, visit Students for a Free Tibet’s campaign site.

This story in yesterday’s New York Times shows how China continues to ramp up pressure on dissidents, activists, writers, and bloggers in advance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Beijing public security agents released a Chinese human rights lawyer on Saturday after detaining him two days earlier without notice and forcing him to endure intensive questioning at an unknown location, the lawyer said.

The lawyer, Teng Biao, 34, said he was released after 41 hours in custody. Mr. Teng, reached by telephone, said four officers from the Beijing Public Security Bureau grabbed him on Thursday night at a parking lot outside his apartment and then drove him away.

Mr. Teng, who is also a part-time college professor, said he was not sure where he was taken. He said that he was not physically harmed but that officers had questioned him sternly and warned him about recent articles he had posted on the Internet.

Mr. Teng refused to discuss his detention further, saying the officers had cautioned him against speaking out.

Chinese police kidnapped a lawyer whose only crime was writing articles that were critical of the Chinese government. They question him for almost two days straight and intimidate him with threats against speaking out any more. Here’s a taste of Teng’s dissident writings that lead to his kidnapping by Chinese police:

In the essay by Mr. Teng and Mr. Hu [a dissident facing trial for thought crimes like the one below] last year, the two wrote bluntly about China’s current situation.

“Is China improving its human rights record?” they asked, according to a translation provided by Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group. “When you come to the Olympic Games in Beijing, you will see skyscrapers, spacious streets, modern stadiums and enthusiastic people. Please be aware that the Olympic Games will be held in a country where there are no elections, no freedom of religion, no independent courts, no independent trade unions; where demonstrations and strikes are prohibited.”

China promised to improve their human rights record and increase freedoms of speech as a condition of hosting the Olympic Games. Yet despite consistent, mounting evidence of widespread crackdown on dissidents, journalists, and bloggers, the IOC has refused to respond. This is truly shameful and a reminder that the People’s Republic of China is not a free country, but one of the most brutal, repressive, anti-democratic places in the world.

Today is March 10th, the anniversary of Tibetan National Uprising. Around the world Tibetans and their supporters are commemorating 49th anniversary of the uprising of tens of thousands of Tibetans against China’s illegal military occupation of Tibet. That uprising created an opening that allowed the Dalai Lama to flee into exile.  March10.org describes the situation:

Despite China’s best attempts to destroy the Tibetan spirit, Tibetan resistance has continued for nearly half a century inside Tibet and in exile communities worldwide.

This year, with all eyes focused on the Olympics in China, Tibetans and supporters worldwide are protesting the Chinese government’s use of the Olympics as a political tool to legitimize its illegal occupation of Tibet.

Join the Global Uprising for Tibet! Help us draw attention to the worsening human rights situation inside Tibet. Help us use the Olympics spotlight to shame and embarrass the Chinese government and show them that until Tibet is free, China will never be never be accepted as a leader on the world stage.

In addition to organizing demonstrations and marches today in honor of Tibetan Uprising Day, Students for a Free Tibet has assembled some incredibly cool technology to cover today’s events. They have set up M10 Live – a page that has live streaming video piped in from Olympia, Greece, India, New York, and more, all playing through an embedded Mogulus channel. Additionally, they’re posting photos, text messages, and audio reports that are being submitted from around the world by people in attendance at their marches. Cell phone pictures and videos are being combined with live streams to give people a full range of information coming in from around the world. They’ve also posted a Google map with locations of protests and marches around the world.

Right now I’m watching a stream from Dharamsala, India, where a group of Tibetan exiles and refugees are starting a return match to Tibet. They will walk through India and return to Tibet for the first time since they were forced into exile. The marchers will be documenting their trip, using cell phones, wifi, laptops, and other cool tech tools to provide an inside view of their trip.

I’ll have updates later today.

Get more info at March10.org.

Full Students for a Free Tibet & Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement statement below the fold.

Continue reading “March 10: Call to Action” →

Lhadon at Beijing Wide Open reports:

Bjork took a stand for Tibetan independence at a concert in Shanghai on Sunday. Following what the BBC described as a “powerful performance” of her song, Declare Independence, Bjork yelled “Tibet, Tibet” and “Raise your flag” repeatedly from the stage. She did the same thing but for Kosovo at a concert in Tokyo last week and was promptly dropped from the lineup of a summer festival in Serbia.

Not surprisingly, may Chinese are not happy with Bjork for taking this stand and some had very harsh words for her. The Associated Press is reporting one concert-goer as saying that after her remarks the atmosphere in the venue was “very strange, uncomfortable compared to the rest of the concert.”

Here’s a video of the concert:

The Tibetan flag is banned in Tibet. Possessing it or displaying it is punishable with years in jail. No question about it, Bjork was calling for Tibetan independence and political resistance to China’s military occupation of Tibet.

The People’s Republic of China, less than six months before the Beijing Olympics, is still not a free society, not even for the Western press. McClatchy Beijing Bureau Chief Tim Johnson writes on his blog China Rises of having a non-fiction book confiscated from his luggage in the Lhasa airport by Chinese security:

One security agent signaled another one over, who knew some English, to peruse the books. They asked me to take off the plastic wrap around two of them. He opened each one and flipped through the pages. I thought maybe he believed I had sliced out a secret compartment in the middle of the books, which obviously I hadn’t done.

He took particular interest in one book: Buddha’s Warriors, by Mikel Dunham, a 2004 account of how the CIA helped turn peaceful monks into armed warriors to fight the Chinese invasion of Tibet. I haven’t read the book but best as I could tell it was a historical review of a brief and long-forgotten U.S. policy during the early Cold War era.

Here’s the problem: The book has photos, including of cadres during the Cultural Revolution belittling class enemies in mass rallies in Tibet. The agent studied the photos, and quickly looked at me. “This is false history,” he said.

Astonished that he could make such a quick determination, I said that the book was about a failed U.S. policy more than four decades old. He was not moved. He suggested that I could buy “true” histories of Tibet at the main market in Lhasa. Reminded that I wasn’t staying in Lhasa, he just shook his head and said the book was confiscated.

I’m sure it was for my own good.

Johnson was merely passing through the Lhasa airport on his way back to Beijing, but his luggage was subject to search and he had a brand new text on modern Tibetan history confiscated. It contained information – identified by border agents through photos, but knowing Buddha’s Warriors there’s certainly much more that might be objectionable to these agents – that the Chinese government does not allow inside Tibet and China. So one of the most respected and well-known Western journalists working inside China had a book confiscated.

Can it get more plain than this? China is not a free country. Tibet is an occupied country. Histories that differ with the revisionism approved by the Chinese Communist Party are forbidden, even when carried and owned by non-citizen journalists.  The pending Olympic Games have brought no relaxation of censorship, no increase in media access, no loosening of the Great Wire Wall. And yet there continues to be zero consequence for China’s continued illiberal actions in the face of their promises to the International Olympic Committee.

What a disgrace.

Hat tip to Mikel Dunham for alerting me to this incident.

Not only have people in China and Tibet seen a reduction in press and internet freedom, Western athletes are now getting gagged.

British athletes selected for this year’s Olympic Games in Beijing will be asked to sign a contract that forbids them from criticizing China’s human rights record.

Graham Nathan, spokesman for the British Olympics Association (BOA), told CNN that “British athletes will have to sign a contract promising not to comment on any politically sensitive issues.”

He added that they won’t go further than what is required by the International Olympic Committee charter which restricts demonstrations of political propaganda at an Olympic Games.

Athletes who refuse to sign the agreement will not be allowed to travel to compete in the Games from August 8-24, according to a sunday newspaper report.

How’s that decision to send the Olympics to China looking, Jacques Rogge of the I.O.C.?

The IOC granted the Olympics to China, justifying their decision with the promise from the Chinese Communist Party that they would liberalize speech and media regulations. They would let the press report whatever they wanted and they would grant their citizenry more freedoms. The IOC, wrongly, took them at their word. There has never been any follow-up by the IOC. There has never been any substantive response to the long-running crackdown on internet and political dissidents in China and Tibet.

And now, we see a major Western democracy cave to Chinese (and undoubtedly IOC) pressure by requiring their athletes to gag themselves if they want to compete in Games most have trained their whole life for.
Does the BOA really think that critical remarks from their athletes are such a threat to China’s government that their words have the potential of bringing down the Chinese government? Apparently nothing is more dangerous to China’s Olympics than the truth.

This is simply reprehensible.

I can’t say my greatest concerns with having the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing are with the athletes who will compete there, but this is just gross.

When a caterer working for the United States Olympic Committee went to a supermarket in China last year, he encountered a piece of chicken — half of a breast — that measured 14 inches. “Enough to feed a family of eight,” said Frank Puleo, a caterer from Staten Island who has traveled to China to handle food-related issues.

“We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive.”

As a result the USOC will import over 25,000 pounds of protein-heavy foods into China to feed American athletes during the Olympics.

So, to recap, thanks to Beijing’s horrendous air pollution, athletes will hardly be able to breathe and thanks to steroid-laden, insecticide-heavy food, athletes won’t be able to eat local food. Is there any upside, anywhere in the IOC’s decision to send the Olympics to China? Not that I see…