About the Olympics
The Athens 2004 Olympics, and subsequent passing of the Olympic flag from Greece to China, signaled the beginning of an international campaign to use the 2008 Beijing Olympics to shine a spotlight on China’s occupation of Tibet. Since the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded Beijing the 2008 Olympic Games in 2001, China’s human rights record has deteriorated. China executes more people than the rest of the world put together; Amnesty International monitored 1,060 cases in 2003 alone. 2003 also witnessed the first execution in nearly two decades of a Tibetan political prisoner, Lobsang Dhondup. In occupied Tibet, China rules with an iron fist. There is no freedom of speech, assembly, press or religion. China’s population transfer policies have moved millions of Chinese into Tibet, disrupting the Tibetan people’s traditional way of life and devastating the fragile Tibetan ecosystem. Millions of Tibetans long for an end to Chinese occupation but face terrifying consequences when they speak up.
The Beijing Olympics are integral to the Chinese government’s increasingly sophisticated effort to obscure its occupation of Tibet and human rights record from international scrutiny. The IOC and China’s leaders insist that politics must not be allowed to sully the Olympics, but China’s bid was nothing if not political. By awarding the 2008 Olympic games to China, the IOC offered international legitimacy to Beijing’s authoritarian rule and its brutal military occupation of Tibet. The Olympics will provide a major opportunity for the Chinese government to showcase itself to the world as a legitimate, respectable, political power. We will shift the focus to highlight the realities of the Chinese government: the occupation of Tibet and deplorable human rights abuses.
Learn more and take action at StudentsForAFreeTibet.org
Visit the official Beijing 2007 Olympic Games website at http://en.beijing2008.cn/
Comments
Comment from Alexandra Patricia Ormsby
Time: August 5, 2007, 10:00 am
Thank you for this website, where people can learn the truth about Chinese occupation of Tibet and the terrible human rights problems in that country now. I practice (to a very small extent!) Tibetan Buddhism here in Los Angeles, and I am so worried that China will destroy the religious heritage of this fragile but massively important spiritual country. I will do everything I can to oppose the Olympics in Beijing and tell everyone I know to do the same. I will not buy any products put out by sponsors of the the games, and will not watch them on television. Please ask everyone to take these two simple steps and inform the TV stations of their decision. Hitting them in the financial ‘gut’ is the most effective. Blessings on your work. Keep us informed! “Tenzin Kadro” — my Tibetan Refuge name.
Comment from Yeshe Lhamo
Time: August 11, 2007, 11:32 am
tashi delek dear lhadon,
thank you so much for doing what you´re doing!I wish the people all over the world will finally realize whats going on.It´s horrible and makes me feel sad.
I wish you alot of strenght & love.
the best dharma wishes from yeshe lhamo/germany
Comment from tenzinphenthok
Time: August 15, 2007, 10:14 am
I was deeply moved and touched by bravo act of patrotism for free tibet for all six millions people of tibet. we six million people full support you and pray one day tibet must be free on this earth soon. As the world is becoming smaller and smaller everyone is being awaken about reality of things in tibet no more china can be isolated from this world. I think the time has come to break down such long period silence of 48years of occupation into tibet. The world must know by now and one cant be blinded for another members of this big family of the earth. lastly, I appreciated you alot.
yours another monk brother from south India.
Comment from Ben M
Time: August 21, 2007, 12:32 am
Hello,
I’ve been following your blog from when you were in China, you have my support. I’ve created a post asking Steven Spielberg for answers about his affiliation to the China Games and thereby the Tibetan genocide in this short letter: http://ilaniam.com/2007/08/21/dear-mr-spielberg/
You can help by “Digging” the story and circulating it to friends and supporters of Free Tibet. If enough people are asking for answers, he will have to acknowledge the reality of the issue. Keep up your amazing work, feel free to suggest amendments to the letter or to take up the concept for yourself. You could also use Digg and Reddit to increase your blog’s visibility.
Comment from Ricard
Time: March 17, 2008, 9:03 pm
Tashi Delek Lhadon,
I hope and pray that you have the connections to somehow get the athletes who participate in the games to unfurl banners to free tibet, hopefully a gold medal high profile one, where they will not be subject to being assaulted. Even better at closing ceremonies, a country will have the guts to unfurl a banner for everyone to see. This is my deep dream that I hope will become reality.
Please do not publish this for I am sure you are being monitored, but I hope that someone can connect with the athletes for it would be incredibly powerful, especially during the games. This must be tried to be kept quiet for they will be on the look out for any protests during the games as I’m sure you are well aware of.
Take care, many blessings to you and tujay chay for your work and dream of a free Tibet.
Comment from David E. Drake, D.O.
Time: March 18, 2008, 4:22 pm
May justice prevail for the people of Tibet - and may it come by public and world exposure of the plight of the Tibetan people - One has to salute the brave people who stand up to the Chinese authorities
David E. Drake, D.O.
Psychiatrist
Des Moines, Iowa
USA
Comment from someguy12345678
Time: March 30, 2008, 11:56 am
From the allegations that you are making about China, it seems to be a rather harsh way of control. I just hope that everyone could just be friends so that Tibetan traditions can live on and so can the people of China who live in that area (who will not have to live in fear of being maimed by protesters). Otherwise, the argument is ever so slightly biased, but emphasises your point of view.
Comment from Pierre Simonet
Time: April 7, 2008, 3:09 am
We saw some Chinese flags in London : therefore the Olympic Garmes are a political event -that is a point China and the International Olympic committee wanted to make conspicuous.
Comment from BZ
Time: April 11, 2008, 4:44 pm
Pierre: OF COURSE the Olympics are a political event — they always have been! Sports as a means for fostering international understanding, peace and brotherhood: is that not political, in a fine sense?
With its cynical manipulation of world opinion, its terrifying human rights record in general, and now its intensified brutalisation of Tibet, China has proven that it was a mistake to give the Games to China in the first place. The Beijing games are already a travesty, a grotesque insult, a slap in the face of the world.
Comment from sabola
Time: April 12, 2008, 9:56 am
We need to educate Chinese people, esp those living in the west the concept of Self-determination. Seems they support the China government on Tibet because Tibet was part of china for hundreds of years. They need help! Canadian chinese seems don’t understand the meaning of their own independence Day/Canada Day July 1?
Comment from gipi
Time: April 13, 2008, 12:29 am
The olyimpic games is a small part of a much bigger picture. I think another area to focus on is why China is so reluctant to give Tibet back to its people, strategic military positioning. Tibet being the highest nation on the planet ,China has set up its nuclear missile bases looking down on the world ready for action. China does not care about human right as they have a bigger agenda which should not be ignored. In fact more people should be informed about this. there was a report in 1993 about Chinas nuclear facilities and weopon manufacturing bases, but the info is a bit thin after that. Tibetans of course no not wish to see thier land turned into a nuclear military base of catastrophic proportion, thats why the rest of the world should be more concerned with the Tibet issue. boe gyalo
Comment from Pierre Simonet
Time: April 17, 2008, 3:07 am
In a roughly over 1,000,OOO sq. kilometers area of mother China in the sixties, nearly whole of the inhabitants were starved to death under the rule of a big helmsman…young people were told by old local survivors : ‘We had to feed on the bark of the trees’
What about those people who’ve been chucked out from their houses besause of this huge dangerous dam? (quite a lot with no compensation).
Same with One Dream, One world, One Catastrophy.
This way of behahing , pretending to put an end to Shenghai corruption about illegal army-owbed vehicles why being harsh with innocent people all over China will bring unhappiness and suffering to the culprits, un moatherland China and all over the worse; and maybe a
Comment from Awok En
Time: April 18, 2008, 10:26 pm
Mandela did not protest in London. Gandhi returned to India from South Africa. These are icons symbolizing a peaceful means of a fight against oppression and a strength of a united people who truly believe in freedom. It happened on the soil they were fighting for. These 2008 Free Tibet protests are all but a facade; liquidated and diluted. Does a San Fransisco Tibetan living in comfortable suburbs want to move to Tibet? German Tibetans? London Tibetans? One day of protests, a post in a blog does not mean anything. Shame of such people. I’m sorry to say this, but there is no depth in this movement. I hope the world will soon find out - at least before the start of the Olympics.
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