The Secret Tibet (The Forbidden world)

      TIBETAN SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE

Date: 12th April, 2008

For Immediate Release                                                                                   

According to today's news broadcast, the president of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Hu Jintao, said the issue of Tibet does not involve ethnic, religion, or human rights. Furthermore, he said the recent protests by peaceful Tibetan demonstrators a separatist activity and blatantly labeled the peaceful demonstration as violent.

If the issue of Tibet is not related to the Tibetan ethnicity, religious freedom and human rights, then why are Tibetans, from all walks of life on the Tibetan plateau, risking their lives in the demonstrations? The fact that the participants in recent protests constitute farmers, nomads, monks and nuns, even students in Chinese Universities prove it is an ethnic issue where Tibetans are struggling for the survival of their identity. If religious freedom truly exists in Tibet, why does the Chinese government forbid Tibetan's right to revere their root guru and ban their spiritual guru's pictures? Why is there a need for the Chinese government to interfere in daily spiritual practices? Why did the Chinese Government destroy the statues of Guru Padmasambhava and Sertha Larung Monastery? Thus, Tibetans are deprived of their freedom of speech and expression. Similarly, Tibetans do not have the freedom to preserve their culture.

Not only Exile Tibetans, many foreign investigation committees, and even the Chinese scholars and intellectuals in the Mainland China suspect China's State-run videos of Tibetans setting fire and beating Han Chinese as fabricated. China's fabricated information was proven false by the two recent incidents. The two incidents occurred at Jokhang Cathedral and Ladrang Tashi Kyil Monastery, where group of monks, putting their lives at risk, protested in front of the foreign medias. Their central message was Tibetans were non-violent in their demonstrations. The Chinese Government is falsely accusing Tibetans amidst lack of independent fact-finding mission to investigate the real situation. Thus, we strongly demand that the Chinese Government allow unbiased and independent international fact-finding delegations to investigate the recent crackdown in Tibet. If the Chinese Government cannot accept this demand, they must stop making false allegations against Tibetans. All the protests taken place from 10th March to 13th March and the subsequent event that took place since 15th March were all absolutely peaceful demonstrations.

If the recent demonstrations by Tibetans were violent, why did the Chinese government expel the foreigners not allowing them to see the real situation? If the Chinese sides of the stories are true, why did they not allow the medias to independently investigate? In addition, why will they not allow a fact-finding mission to investigate inside Tibet? From the recent crackdown, our known figure is minimum of 150 Tibetans killed. Countless numbers of Tibetans injured. Arrestees range in the thousands. Among the deaths, we have evidence of young school children killed. Are killings, arresting, and torturing innocent Tibetans a true act of a responsible state that the PRC claims over Tibet?