Campaigning for Tibet freedom

by Dakshana Bascaramurty  | The Charlatan
September 05, 2007

Lhadon Tethong was deported from China due to her political and social views of Tibet and China relations

Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), visited China for the first time after years of protests and campaigns against what she views as an invasion of a free people and state.

She blogged her way through Beijing with her colleague Paul Golding, documenting her views on beijingwideopen.org and China's "illegal occupation of Tibet," she says. She strategically timed her travels to take place exactly one year before the 2008 Olympic Games.

Though not a member of the group that unfurled a 450-square foot banner over the Great Wall of China that read: 'One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008', Tethong says her blog entries led to her deportation.

Arrested on Aug. 8 and detained in a downtown Beijing police station, she was questioned for six hours by the metropolitan and plain-clothes police.

"[They] were interested in what we were doing, why were in China [and if] were we trying to recruit for our cause," she says. 

Tethong was detained for less than 12 hours before being deported to Hong Kong. 

"In the end, I was deported from China because I was, [according to the police], undermining the stability of the Chinese government," she says.

Tethong grew up hearing about Tibetan issues and its standing on the international stage, especially from her Tibetan father.

Yet it was only at a Free Tibet concert in San Francisco in 1996, that she became actively involved in the cause.

That same year, the history student at Nova Scotia's King's College started a chapter of the organization in Halifax.

After graduating Tethong worked at the Toronto Stock Exchange. But she packed her bags and left Toronto after applying and receiving the program co-ordinator post at the SFT's New York City location.

As one of three staff members, Tethong says she was in charge of many things including seminars, public speaking and campaigns.

Now, with four years as executive director under her belt, the organization has chapters in countries worldwide, including Australia, Cameroon and the Czech Republic.

While Tethong has dealt first-hand with how information on freedom for Tibetans is heavily restricted by Chinese authorities, she uses the Internet as an activist tool.

"It's illegal to discuss the issue [of Tibet] if you are over there [in China]," she says while waiting in an airport for a flight to Canada after her tumultuous trip.

She says this interview and story would have been impossible to complete if she were back in the communist state.

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