Tibetan exiles back Dalai Lama, challenge talks with China (International Campaign for Tibet, November 22nd, 2008)
The Special Meeting called by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India closed today with a strong endorsement of the 'Middle Way' approach, which seeks a genuine autonomy within the framework of the People's Republic of China (PRC), but also clearly stated that exile Tibetans might take a position seeking independence if results of engagement were not evident "in the near future".
Special Meeting in Dharamsala comes to a close and perspectives from inside Tibet (International Campaign for Tibet, November 21st, 2008)
The Special Meeting to debate ways forward for Tibet concludes November 22 in Dharamsala, India with a final plenary session to be addressed by the Tibetan Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) Samdhong Rinpoche and the Speaker of the Parliament. The Dalai Lama will address delegates and the press on the morning of November 23. Views from Tibetans inside Tibet expressed on blogs and on the telephone, linked to the Special Meeting, are enclosed below.
UN Committee against Torture finds (International Campaign for Tibet, November 21st, 2008)
The UN Committee against Torture has today released its concluding observations of
A way forward for Tibet: perspectives from inside China (International Campaign for Tibet, November 20th, 2008)
An increasingly vocal constituency in public discussions on the future of Tibet is being found among Chinese academics, lawyers and other intellectuals within China itself. While there has always been a notable degree of sympathy and support for Tibetans and the Tibetan cause among sections of China's politically active exile community, events since the Spring Uprising in Tibet appear to have inspired more and more Chinese writers within China to question the Chinese government's treatment of Tibet and the Tibetan people.
"The time has come for the Tibetan struggle to show its maturity" (International Campaign for Tibet, November 20th, 2008)
Three Adherences by Tibetans in Connection with the Ongoing Special General Meeting in Dharamsala
Dalai Lama's elder brother Gyalo Thondup speaks out in Dharamsala (International Campaign for Tibet, November 19th, 2008)
The Dalai Lama's elder brother, Gyalo Thondup, a former resistance leader whose meeting with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 began a series of contacts between Tibetans and the Chinese leadership, spoke publicly today in Dharamsala, India, to urge a continuation of engagement with China "because we have no choice". Thondup, who no longer serves in an official capacity, said that he also wanted to counter Chinese representations of the discussions following his own conversations with the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979.
Perspectives from inside Tibet (International Campaign for Tibet, November 18th, 2008)
On the second day of the Special Meeting in Dharamsala, bringing together Tibetans from the diaspora worldwide and including new arrivals from Tibet, the Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) of the Tibetan government in exile clarified the process of the meeting and its possible outcome. He said that the first day had been very "emotionally charged", with each of the 15 sub-committees discussing a wide range of issues relating to the current situation in
Labrang monk official who spoke out seized from monastery as detentions continue across Tibet (International Campaign for Tibet, November 18th, 2008)
There are fears for the safety of a senior monk, Jigme Guri (or Gyatso), whose account of a period in detention following the March protests in his monastery, Labrang (Chinese: Xiahe) was videoed and uploaded on Youtube. Jigme Guri (also known under the honorifics 'Akhu' Jigme and Lama Jigme), deputy director of his monastery's 'Democratic Management Committee' and Director of Labrang's Vocational School, was taken from his monk's quarters at Labrang last Tuesday (November 4) by around 70 police and is now being held in Lanzhou, the provincial capital of Gansu province. Images included in this report show 42-year old Jigme in hospital following torture during his period of detention from March 22.
Disappearances continue across Tibet: Tibetan woman sentenced for talking on telephone (International Campaign for Tibet, November 17th, 2008)
A Tibetan female cadre in her thirties, Norzin Wangmo, has been sentenced to five years in prison for passing on news through the phone and internet about the situation in Tibet to the outside world, according to two sources including the Tibetan government in exile. Norzin Wangmo, from Ngaba Trochu county of Ngaba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan province, was convicted on November 3; exact details of the charges against her are not known. In a letter written upon receiving the news about her imprisonment, a friend of hers wrote: "In your thirties, the prime of life, the critical juncture when your child needs educating, you and other heroes and heroines like you parted ways with your parents, split up with your spouses, and made orphans of your children for the sake of truth, and had to take the path alone. Five years is 1,825 days. It is 43,800 hours. To have to spend the best years of your life in a dark prison cell, what misery!"
A way forward: perspectives from inside Tibet (International Campaign for Tibet, November 17th, 2008)
Dharmasala, November 17. This morning, Tibetan government ministers, parliamentarians, activists, representatives of Tibetan non-governmental and community organizations and independent intellectuals met in Dharamsala, India, in the opening session of a Special Meeting convened by the Dalai Lama to discuss Tibet's future. It is a historic juncture for the Tibetan people at a moment of crisis in Tibet, after a wave of protests against Chinese rule swept across the plateau from March 10 for several months.
ICT welcomes public scrutiny of memorandum on Tibetan autonomy to counter Chinese propaganda (International Campaign for Tibet, November 16th, 2008)
The Dalai Lama's envoys today released a memorandum on autonomy presented to Chinese officials during the latest and eighth round of dialogue on November 4 and 5, 2008 in Beijing. The document, which specifies the Tibetan position on genuine autonomy and the "very considerable extent Tibetan needs can be met within the [Chinese] constitutional principles on autonomy" was released in Dharamsala, India, on the eve of the Special Meeting on Tibet's future called by the Dalai Lama. The full text is included below and at http://www.tibet.net.
Intensified security in Lhasa coincides with eighth round of talks (International Campaign for Tibet, November 13th, 2008)
Chinese officials have admitted to stepping up security in Lhasa linked to "the Dalai Lama's separatist activities" and coinciding with the eighth round of dialogue between Chinese officials and the Dalai Lama's representatives in Beijing (October 31 - November 5). Hardline comments made on Monday by Zhu Weiqun, the Executive Vice Minister of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party, who met the Dalai Lama's envoys, followed the announcement by China's state-run media last week of a propaganda drive on Tibet, and indicate the Party's concern over support from the international community on the Tibet issue.
No progress in eighth round of dialogue as Chinese reject autonomy proposal (International Campaign for Tibet, November 10th, 2008)
Chinese official Zhu Weiqun today categorically denounced an autonomy proposal presented by the Dalai Lama's envoys during the eighth round of dialogue last week in an uncompromising stance that counters the hopes of Tibetans for genuine autonomy in their homeland (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/10/content_10336956.htm). By rejecting the Dalai Lama's Middle Way approach as "disguised independence" and openly speculating over his death, the Chinese position will increase resentment and frustration among Tibetans.
New British statement on Tibet (International Campaign for Tibet, November 7th, 2008)
The British Government has issued an important statement on Tibet that is a strong assertion of support for the dialogue between the Chinese Government and envoys of the Dalai Lama. The envoys have been pressing the Chinese for a resolution of issues that would lead to a solution for Tibet based on genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people within the People's Republic of China. The British Government statement, issued by Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister David Miliband on October 29, was issued on the eve of the eighth round of the dialogue (November 4 and 5 in Beijing).
Statement of Special Envoy Kasur Lodi Gyari, Head of the Tibetan Delegation, following the 8th round of discussions with representatives of the Chinese leadership (Central Tibetan Administration, November 6th, 2008)
Envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen and I, accompanied by senior aides Sonam N. Dagpo and Bhuchung K. Tsering, both members of the Task Force on Sino-Tibetan Negotiations, and Kalsang Tsering from the Secretariat of the Task Force, visited China from October 30 to November 5, 2008. We returned to India on November 6, 2008.
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