Tibetan Uprising

More than 350 marchers from the March to Tibet and over a thousand exile Tibetans from seven different refugee camps in Uttarakhand, Poanta Sahib, Deckyiling, Rajpur, Puruwala, Hebertpur, Clementown, and Tsering Dhondenling, staged a massive protest at Gandhi Park, Dehradun, to condemn China taking the Olympic torch to Tibet. The protestors gathered at the Park and the proceeded to march 7 kilometers through the Dehradun market.

The chief guest, Shri Vinod Chamoli, Mayor of Uttarakhand, addressed the protestors at Gandhi Park and expressed his wholehearted support for the marchers and all the Tibetans in our freedom struggle. Mr. Jingar Pon Damdul, the former Representative Officer of Uttarakhand, also encouraged the marchers and the March organisers to carry the struggle forward.

“The Chinese government is using the Olympic torch as a political tool in an attempt to legitimize its illegal occupation of Tibet,” said Mr. Tsewang Rigzin, President of Tibetan Youth Congress. “When we look back in the history of our freedom struggle, we will see that the Olympics is providing us an unprecedented opportunity to highlight the Tibetan cause globally.”

The Chinese authorities took the Olympic torch to Lhasa today, the Tibetan capital rocked by protests in March. The torch will also be paraded through Gormo and Kokonor, areas of Eastern Tibet’s Amdo province (Chinese: Qinghai province) where a majority of the recent protests occurred.

“The Olympic torch was run through Tibet amidst very tight security and due to the heavy media censorship; there is no way to know if Tibetans protested the torch in Lhasa. There is also no way to find out how the authorities must have dealt with the protestors,” said Dr. B. Tsering, President of Tibetan Women’s Association. “Tibetans will keep up our struggle long after the Beijing Olympics have ended, and we will never give up until we stand as free people on Tibetan soil.”