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“Candle for Tibet” is a non-profit, non-violent light protest that aims to help in the process of freeing Tibet, supporting the value of freedom of all mankind, and to help in creating a new tool of influence for individuals from all over the world.
H.H. the Dalai Lama acknowledged today the importance of the Candle for Tibet (CFT) campaign for Freedom in Tibet and for all mankind.
“We hope your Candle for Tibet campaign will inspire the Chinese authorities to appreciate the value of freedom of all mankind and the importance of the Tibetan Buddhist culture that is benefiting millions of people and has the potential to serve humanity as a whole, including the Chinese people,” said Tsering Tashi representative of H.H. the Dalai Lama.
“Candle for Tibet” asks people to put a candle in their windows, on their desks, or anywhere else where other people will see it and hopefully do the same. Over 100 million people will participate in vigils and other light actions throughout the world. Billions on TV screens all over the world will see it on the day the Beijing Olympics open.
CFT organizers also encourage all freedom lovers in the world to drive their cars with headlights on during the entire day of Friday, August 8th, 2008—the day of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony—in appreciation of their own freedom.
CFT is additionally calling on all people attending the opening ceremony in Beijing to light candles, lighters, flashlights and cell phones at the moment the Chinese delegation enters the Olympic stadium.
On the following day letters will be issued to every head of state in the world reporting how many people from each country wish Tibet to be free, and demanding that each one of them will act for the freedom of Tibet.
Synchronized with the beginning of the opening ceremony, teams from “Sad Smoky Mountains” will flare the skies with red smoke from skyscrapers, monuments and major buildings In major cities, and from the summits of more than 100 mountains on three continents. (For more information on Sad Smoky Mountains, visit www.sadsmokymountains.net/.)
CFT is endorsed and supported by the International Tibet Support Network (ITSN), and, almost all other major International Tibet support groups.
Tibetan musician, Yungchen Lhamo, has joined the “Candle for Tibet” campaign and is leading it into people’s hearts with her divine voice, music and spirit.
CFT is a peaceful light protest and a show of unity for freedom and human rights.
We are not against the Olympics or the Chinese; we stand for freedom for all peoples.
“Like you, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in Exile is not against the coming Olympics to be held in Beijing,” added Tsering Tashi. “We are also not against the Chinese people, who also do not enjoy genuine human rights and freedoms that the people in the free world take for granted.”
“We are elated to have the blessing of His Holiness,” said David Califa, who created the Campaign for Tibet four months ago. “It strengthens the values on which our non-violent action is based.”
Please add your voice and your light to our campaign.
www.Candle4Tibet.org
info@candle4tibet.org
KATHMANDU – Hundreds of protesters calling for independence for Tibet protested in the Nepali capital of Kathmandu on Friday, and police said they took 118 demonstrators into custody for organising anti-China demonstrations.
Many were Tibetan exiles shouting “We want free Tibet” slogans. They burned an effigy of the Chinese President Hu Jintao near a consular office of the Chinese embassy in the Nepali capital.
They were then hauled into police vans and trucks and taken to detention centres. A police official said they would be freed later on Friday.
Tibetans have protested regularly in Nepal since the deadly Chinese crackdown on riots in Lhasa and other parts of Tibet in mid-March.
More than 20,000 Tibetans still live in Nepal since fleeing their homeland after a failed uprising against Beijing in 1959.
Do you, like me, care about freedom and want to have a say about it?
Please join more than 100,000,000 people in the Biggest Light Protest on Earth for a Free Tibet.
Light a candle on August 7th at 9:00 p.m. (At your home, or in public)
Join and enjoy special light actions on the same night.
Drive with you car’s headlights on during August 8 2008.
Watch “Sad Smoky Mountains” teams paint the sky with red smoke.
Watch those attending the opening ceremony in Beijing light candles, flashlights, cell phones and lighters. All for a FREE TIBET.
Please us join ,
Love,
Candle for Tibet
http://www.candle4tibet.org/
Dharamsala, July 22: A group of Tibetan non-governmental organisations based in Dharamsala today announced to spearhead a new round of “Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement” campaigns to take Tibetan freedom struggle to a new height as Beijing prepares to showcase 2008 Olympics as China’s “Coming out party”.
The committee members of the Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement (TPUM) said they would organise “numerous actions” in Dharamsala, administrative centre of Tibetan exiles in India, and other international venues like UN and IOC Offices in Geneva and New York, European Union in Brussels and Strasbourg.
The group said the actions would be organised in a more vigorous manner both during and after the Beijing Olympics, but declined to give more specific details.
“We have Tibetans and supporters all over the world who will actively take part in our campaign activities” Dr. B. Tsering, president of Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA), said at a press conference here today. “Accordingly we will arrange and organise effective campaigns at relevant places,” she added.
The group, in their press statement, said they believed in the “fierce urgency of now” to exploit various channels and means to convey the demands and the aspirations of the Tibetan people and raise Tibet issue at strategic international levels by putting pressure on relevant international bodies.
Describing 2008 as a “critical point” for Tibetan freedom struggle, the committee members of the TPUM today emphasised on the need of “more consolidated campaigns” and urged fellow Tibetans and supporters worldwide to show “even greater unity” for Tibet’s cause.
Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement (TPUM) was formally launched on January 4, initially by Tibetan Youth Congress, Tibetan Women’s Association, Gu-Chu-Sum Movement of Tibet, National Democratic Party of Tibet and Students for a Free Tibet, India. The group described its formation as a “global movement of Tibetans inside and outside of Tibet taking control of our political destiny by engaging in direct action to end China’s illegal and brutal occupation of our country”.
Tibetan Youth Congress later withdrew from the group to carry out its own set of actions under the campaign banner “Tibetan People’s Mass Movement”.
“We are today at the crossroad of historic moment in the Tibetan People’s struggle for freedom, truth and justice,” B. Tsering, said reading out reading out TPUM’s press statement.
“We will also support Tibetan Youth Congress in their campaigns, if need be,” B. Tsering said, reacting to a media question. “They have our solidarity since what we are doing is for the Tibetan people’s cause,” she added.
“Our unity in action and focus in purpose during the following months will not only define the long and strategic preparations that we have made for the 2008 Beijing Olympics but more importantly to realise the true political aspirations of our brothers and sisters who made great sacrifices,” she noted referring to enduring resistance shown by Tibetans inside Tibet against China’s rule.
She said the “ongoing popular uprisings in Tibet which began on March 10 in Lhasa and the spontaneous spread to all part of Tibet” had effectively demonstrated Tibetan people’s “deep-rooted resentments against the Chinese colonial policies, and also the united face of the Tibetan people as a cohesive force in resisting Chinese communist regime”.
Protests in Tibet against Chinese rule erupted in March, and China was condemned internationally for its ensuing security crackdown that Tibetan exiles said left more than 200 people dead and hundreds more either injured or arrested.
“The uprising in Tibet further endorsed the non-violent fabric of the Tibetan struggle and brought to the forefront the appalling human rights situation inside Tibet at a time when China prepares itself for international spotlight,” Tsering said.
Among other demands TPUM calls on China “To remove all obstacles to the unconditional return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet and his rightful place as leader of the Tibetan people, and “Begin dismantling the colonial occupation of Tibet” and release of all political prisoners in Tibet.
“Furthermore, TPUM will launch an all out-struggle on a war-front scale against draconian designs of spearheading a second cultural revolution in Tibet after the Olympics as declared by Zhang Qingli, the communist party Secretary of the Tibetan Autonomous Region,” Tsering said.
According to Gu-Chu-Sum president Ven. Ngawang Woebar, as a result of China’s military crackdown on Tibetan demonstrators after widespread protests since March and violent repressions taking place in Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, a cultural revolution-like tragedy is already taking place inside Tibet.
YETI: The mighty Himalayan man, is a myth now. Tibet as a free nation and the existence of Tibetans as the rightful people of Tibet is being made into a myth by the Chinese government.
YETI is a symbol of hope for all Tibetans, praying to become the Mighty Himalayan Spiritual Nation once again. It’s the story of Tibetans born in India, living a dream of going back to their free country one day. YETI is a non-profit, collaborative film project that will be released online on 8th august 2008 when the Olympic Games start in Beijing. The objective of this film project is to reach student communities worldwide and to gather support for the peaceful struggle of the Tibetan people in the age of weapons and wars. It will also attempt to provide the viewer with an understanding of the Tibetan Uprising Movement at this critical point in Tibetan history.
Can Tibetans get their country back from Communist China by using flags and prayers against their modern weapons?
One is routinely asked, why are you heading off to yet another Free Tibet demo? A few protesters pitched against the mighty People’s Republic of China, come on, get real, do something productive, like, upgrade your iPod. Aside from the fact that shouting China Out Of Tibet with your friends always reminds those passing by that Tibet is in chains, there are plenty of reasons to keep up the heat as the Summer Games approach.
The protests have already done the world a favor by exposing the CCP for what it is. The militarization that was summoned to “protect” the torch was met with resistance, and was thwarted. Not one demonstrator was critically harmed in the path of the Blood Torch, a testament to the power of a non-violent people’s movement. Now we’re approaching the main event, where China is going to test-run state-of-the-art surveillance and suppression techniques for the world’s biggest sporting event. If the PSB soars, God help us all. If they sputter, raise your flag and have a drink.
But the most compelling purpose for heading towards the Chinese Consulate with a Tibetan flag is to speak for people who are in jails, torture cells and graves, who would join you if they could. Just ask Palden Gyatso.
Palden has come to New York City with a new documentary about his life, “Fire Under the Snow”. It tells of his childhood in old Tibet, his monastic education, and how he was arrested by PLA soldiers in 1959, soon after Dalai Lama took flight to India. His crimes were only that he refused to denounce his Buddhist teacher or state that Tibet belonged to China. He was savagely beaten, he saw his friends die in torment, for decades he was given no more than two cold buns each day for his food. He had to pray in secret; if anyone was caught intoning prayers, they were severely punished. For two years his hands and legs were shackled with iron bars, in the years that followed he had electric cattle prods shoved into his mouth and stomach.
In 1992 Palden was released and escaped to India, smuggling a cache of electric cattle prods, knives and shackles used upon Tibetan prisoners. I met Palden in 1994, when he showed the torture instruments to the United States Congress. For decades many had struggled to bring information about conditions in Tibet under Chinese rule to the world when propaganda was accepted as fact. Palden came as a gift; a survivor of 33 years of enslavement, a living witness to Communist China’s cruel and vast gulag, to speak for the dead.
As he sits in my Manhattan home, Palden paints exquisite calligraphy of ancient Tibetan scripts. He studies history books, with a keen interest in the Mao and the Communist victory in China. He explores the New York streets with grace and delight, everywhere he makes friends, incites conversations. He listens to Tibetan broadcasts for news of his homeland, as the radio transmits desperate voices describing arrests, beatings, terror and despair. At the daily vigil before the Chinese Consulate, Palden joins local activists praying not just for Tibet, but also for those who died in China and Burma, in the earthquake and cyclone. Last month Palden asked a friend to take him to Ground Zero, to pray for those who perished on 9/11, and those now dying in Iraq.
The Tibet movement has no army, no wealth, pitted against the colossal PRC, but in the Rangzen Spring of 2008, the Tibetans rose up against the People’s Liberation Army and the people of the world stood with them. As the late great Abe Rosenthal wrote in his 1995 essay, “You are Palden Gyatso”;
“So why do some members of Congress hold hearings, Americans around the country raise money for Tibetan freedom, and why is it so useful to listen to a monk with a bent, twisted back, scars on his body and startling clarity in his eyes? The reason is that those who do what is within their talent, influence and means for Tibet become part of a movement for the abolition of slavery. Sooner or later abolition movements triumph; it is written.”
There’s a Free Tibet Demo happening every day, in a city near you. Come and bring your friends. Palden Gyatso will be there.
An email from Students for a Free Tibet:
Candle4Tibet
We decided to start this network alongside our main web site http://www.candle4tibet.org/ for many reasons.
Here are 3 of them:
Interaction
Here you can meet and interact with people from all over the world who share your values about freedom to Tibet, and freedom in general.
Content
We invested most of our resources on having a real multilingual site, thus enabling as many people from all over the world to participate in our global light show. By that we neglected a little the content side. Here you can help in contribution and education.
You can also enrich yourself from other people’s content about Tibet and freedom.
Please feel free to add content, start or participate in discussion and help enriching this experience for all.
Distribution
It is easy on this platform to invite all your friends with a few mouse clicks.
Please join too:
http://candle4tibet.ning.com/
We hope that once your friends land here, they’ll find their way to our main web site
http://www.candle4tibet.org/
and help us all in creating
THE WORLD GREATEST LIGHT PROTEST.
So please, go to ‘Invite’, and start inviting as many people as you can.
Because,
UNITED, NOTHING CAN STOP YOUR LIGHT FROM SHINING
Love
David
