Tibet: August 2007 Archives

Free-Tibet activist expelled by Beijing gets hero's welcome on return to Canada

By Nicholas Keung | The Toronto Star
August 10, 2007

A weary Lhadon Tethong received a hero's welcome from her family and supporters as the human rights activist arrived in Toronto last night - less than two days after being detained by China for calling for freedom for Tibet.

With tousled hair and wearing a backpack, the 31-year-old woman was embraced by her father Tsewang Choegyal, brother Losel and cousin Cindy Rees as a dozen Tibetan-Canadians chanted her name and waved red, yellow and blue Tibetan flags.

"It feels great to be back," sighed Tethong as people threw beige and yellow Tibetan scarves on her neck.

"I was worried about my personal safety," she said. "It's hard not to be freaked out. Whenever I felt afraid and nervous, especially in the night, I would just think about what protection I thought I did have.

"Compared to ... Tibetans and Chinese dissidents - (who have) no protection, no foreign passports or foreign press to come to their aid - what I was doing really felt small compared to that."

Tethong, executive director of the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet, was among three Canadians detained after a group of activists hoisted a banner saying "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet, 2008" on the Great Wall Tuesday, as the one-year countdown began for the Beijing Olympics.

Tethong was detained Wednesday and deported for blogging and posting photos online about what her group called China's "propaganda campaign" in the year leading up to the Games.

Fellow Canadians Melanie Raoul, 25, and Sam Price, 32 - who were among six activists who raised the banner - arrived home in Vancouver earlier yesterday to hugs from their parents and supporters.

"She has been an activist since she was small," said Tethong's father, a Tibetan who met his Canadian wife, Judy, in India before they settled in Victoria, B.C., in 1975. "It's a relief to see her home, safe and sound. We're all proud of her."

Chinese Communist troops moved into Tibet in 1951. Tibetans regard China's presence as an occupation.

Tethong, a graduate of Dalhousie University, said the world has to seize the opportunity to bring China's rights records to the forefront.

"China is under the gun right now," she told reporters at the airport. "They wanted this (Olympic pride), but they didn't want what it means to be a free and open society, which is to allow dissent and to allow protest."

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By Associated Press | via (uncensored) yahoo!news
09 August 2007

China deported a group of activists who hung a banner on the Great Wall calling for Tibetan independence ahead of celebrations marking one year until the Beijing Olympics, an activist group said Thursday.

The six members of Students for a Free Tibet arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday following their two-day detention by Chinese authorities, said Kate Woznow, the group's campaign director. They were not physically mistreated during that time but were exhausted from repeated questioning, she said.

Three Americans were part of the group: Leslie Kaup of St. Paul, Minn., Nupur Modi of Oakland, Calif., and Duane Martinez of Sausalito, Calif.

On Tuesday, the group scaled down part of the Great Wall to unfurl a huge banner reading "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008."

Also deported to Hong Kong was Lhadon Tethong, the activist group's executive director, who had been in Beijing blogging about "China's Olympics-related propaganda," the group said in a statement. A British colleague was detained and deported as well.

"Even though she knew there was a likelihood she was going to be detained, it still seemed that what she was doing -- blogging -- isn't illegal. In most countries it wouldn't cause anyone to bat an eye," Woznow said in a telephone interview from Hong Kong.

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | via ABC News
August 5, 2007

Scores of people have been arrested in a traditionally Tibetan area of western China following public calls for the return of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, reports said Friday.

Police and army reinforcements were sent to the town of Lithang in western Sichuan province following the incident Wednesday at an annual horse festival that attracts thousands of people, according to the overseas monitoring group International Campaign for Tibet and the U.S. government-supported Radio Free Asia.

The reports said a local resident, Runggye Adak, was detained after he climbed onto a stage erected for Chinese officials, grabbed a microphone and asked the crowd if they wanted the Dalai Lama to return.

Other residents appealed to police and local officials to release him, leading officers to fire warning shots to disperse the crowd outside the local detention center.

RFA [Radio Free Asia] said about 200 Tibetans were detained following the protest, but gave no indication of whether they were still in custody.

International Campaign for Tibet said additional arrests were reported, but gave no figures or estimates.

A woman who answered the telephone at Lithang's police station confirmed the protest had occurred, but hung up when asked for details.

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