ICT Accomplishments
Following is a partial list of accomplishments spearheaded by the staff and membership of the International Campaign for Tibet.
2004
- Released When the Sky Fell to Earth, an extensive ICT report, with Devotion and Defiance, a documentary video, on current religious policy and practice in Tibet.
- Co-hosted second roundtable at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva that examined systemic human rights abuses in Tibet. Attended by scores of NGOs and representatives of 10 governments.
- Increased number of current, active members of ICT's three offices to more than 80,000.
2003
- Ensured that U.S. government funding for Tibetan programs continued and grew while reflecting the concerns and priorities of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people.
- Published an in-depth report, Crossing the Line: China's Railway to Lhasa, Tibet, finding that the railway crossing the Tibetan plateau is being built mainly for political reasons and not to benefit the Tibetan people.
- Helped secure the release to the United States of the longest-held Tibetan female political prisoner, Ngawang Sangdrol, a 26-year-old nun who had already spent 11 years in Lhasa's Drapchi prison.
- The White House issues the first-ever presidential Status of Tibet Negotiations report to Congress.
- Began the European Tibetan Youth Leadership Program to empower young Tibetans in Europe and strategize on how youth can shape the future of the Tibet movement.
2002
- Testified before Congress, including before the Congressional Human Rights Committee regarding Chinese abuses against Tibet, highlighting the need to prevent China from cracking down on Tibetans under the guise of preventing terrorism, as well as before the Congressional Executive Commission on China.
- Released first annual report, Dangerous Crossing, Conditions Impacting the Flight of Tibetan Refugees in 2001 examining the reasons Tibetans flee, dangers en route, and situations facing them in India and Nepal.
- Helped secure passage of Tibetan Policy Act through direct and grassroots lobbying. The TPA institutionalizes programmatic and political support for Tibet, including establishing the position of Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues at the State Department.
- Started publishing Liaowang Xizang (Tibet Observer), a bimonthly journal in the Chinese language as outreach to Chinese scholars, activitists and politicians around the world.
2001
- ICT staff and members successfully reach goal of signing on more than a hundred House and Senate cosponsors for the Tibetan Policy Act.
- Launched a campaign for medical parole for Ngawang Choephel; distributed 72,000 Panchen Lama kits and brought the Panchen Lama film "Tibet's Stolen Child" to large audiences around the world.
- ICT exposed the massive crackdown at Larung Gar where thousands of nuns and monks were expelled and their meditation dwellings destroyed.
- ICT Europe and other Tibet groups helped force the local government of Zoetermeer in Holland to cancel its plan to develop a Chinese theme park.
- The UN General Assembly responds to a challenge by China and votes 46 to 37 to approve the accreditation of the International Campaign for Tibet to the UN World Conference Against Racism.
- ICT organizes its first Tibetan Youth Leadership Program in Washington, DC, designed to provide legislative, media and human rights training to young Tibetans.
2000
- China withdraws its Tibetan resettlement project from final stage of World Bank consideration after key governments voiced opposition.
- Launched Panchen Lama campaign in Europe to mobilize citizens and governments to stand up for religious freedom in Tibet.
1999
- ICT lodges formal review demand on behalf of effected Tibetans, and intense pressure from coalition of Tibet activist and environmental groups. The project would move 58,000 non-Tibetan peasants up and onto the Tibetan plateau, diluting the culture, altering the ethnic balance, and impacting the fragile ecosystem. China warns that, if the project failed to pass, it would "re-evaluate" its relationship with the Bank.
1998
- ICT coordinates national Tibet Awareness Campaign around the release of "Kundun" and "Seven Years in Tibet."
- ICT campaigns in the U.S. and in China to ensure Tibet is a prominent topic at the US-China Summit in Beijing. President Clinton publicly calls on Chinese President Jiang to meet with the Dalai Lama.
1997
- ICT hosts World Parliamentarian Convention on Tibet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and delegates from 27 other countries.
- The U.S. Secretary of State appoints the first Special Coordinator for Tibetan Affairs.
- ICT coordinates a series of history-making protests of Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to seven US cities.
1996
- After years of effort, Radio Free Asia begins broadcasting to Tibet, China, and elsewhere. RFA now broadcasts into Tibet 8 hours every day.
- ICT releases A Season to Purge: Religious Repression in Tibet highlighting the detention of the Panchen Lama.
1995
- ICT helps give voice to the Tibetan women at the United Nations Women's Conference in Beijing.
- ICT hosts a major visit of the Dalai Lama to Atlanta, Houston, Boston, and Washington, DC.
1994
- The State Department includes a separate section for Tibet in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
- ICT organizes U.S. tour of torture implements smuggled out of Tibet.
1993
- ICT coordinates the first meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Clinton and Vice President Gore.
- ICT participates actively in campaigns against Beijing hosting the 2000 Olympics. The campaign succeeds.
- ICT publishes a ground-breaking report, Nuclear Tibet, on nuclear waste and nuclear weapons in Tibet.
- ICT launches a drive to add conditions to China's Most Favored Nation trading status. President Clinton conditions the extension of MFN to China on specific human rights improvements, including in Tibet.
1992
- ICT conducts a fact-finding mission in Tibet focusing on prisons and labor camps.
- ICT mobilizes an international movement at the UN Earth Summit in Brazil to protest funding of international projects which grow wheat in Tibet for Chinese settlers.
- ICT begins publishing a newsletter on environment and development issues to inform and network with individuals and agencies working in Tibet.
1991
- ICT coordinates a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Bush, the first meeting ever between a Dalai Lama and a U.S. President.
- President Bush signs into law an Act of Congress that includes language declaring Tibet an occupied country under international law.
- Congress assembles in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to welcome the Dalai Lama and prints the proceedings as a congressional document.
- In Geneva, ICT staff work to help pass a resolution in the United Nations Subcommission on Human Rights, the first resolution on Tibet in the UN since 1965.
- ICT participates in a major initiative to broaden dialogue between Chinese and Tibetans at a forum held in Virginia.
1990
- ICT coordinates efforts to secure the provision of 1,000 immigrant visas to Tibetan refugees.
- Congress provides humanitarian assistance for Tibetan refugees in India and Nepal.
1989
- Congress establishes the Tibetan language service of Voice of America and Tibetan scholarships under the Fulbright Program for Tibetan refugees.
- ICT undertakes a major campaign to expose abuses and to end martial law in Lhasa, imposed by China on March 5, and lifted nearly a year later.
1988
- Congress passes one of its first resolutions on Tibet, supporting the Dalai Lama's Five Point Peace Plan.
- Jigme Ngapo, ICT's China analyst, begins publishing the Tibet Forum, a Chinese language newspaper.
