Students for Free Tibet observe World Human Rights Day, urge China to release Tibetan political prisoners

Students For Free Tibet (SFT) have launched “Write for Rights” campaign: a powerful initiative to demand justice for Tibetan Political Prisoners while commemorating International Human Rights Day in Dharamshala on Tuesday.

The young Tibetan activists living in-exile gathered to observe the human rights day with an appeal to China to respect the human rights. Tibetan activists have urged general public to stand for the cause of Tibet and sign an online petition or post cards for the release of five Tibetan political prisoners.

They will send these post cards and online petitions to the Chinese Embassy. Every letter, email, petitions, voice in this campaign is call for justice and hope for those unjust imprisoned.

Tenzin Lekdhen, Campaign Director, SFT said, that they are commemorating the Nobel Peace Prize to Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama and the World Human Rights Day. He said that they are demanding the release of five political prisoners. He said that they will send postcards to Chinese authorities, asking them to release these political prisoners unconditionally.

“Today is World Human Rights Day. It’s a day that we also commemorate the Nobel Peace Prize to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and also the World Human Rights Day, where we try to highlight all the human rights atrocities that have been committed, all the genocide that have been committed by the regimes. So, today we are highlighting some of the Tibetan political prisoners that are currently in Tibet. So, today we are highlighting five of them,” Tenzin said.

“We have range of them from environmentalists who have been detained and been jailed for 15 years for just trying to protect the rights of Tibetan environment. And also we have political prisoners who are writers who have spoken up, there are singers here. So, we have a range of political prisoners who we are trying to highlight, and not just highlight, but we have here an online petition here, and also here we have offline postcards that we are going to send to the Chinese embassies and the authorities and asking them and to release these political prisoners unconditionally,” he added.

When asked whether China will listen to their voice, he responded, “They may or may not, but it’s important that we do highlight these political prisoners or else their voice won’t be heard. That’s important for now.”

Tenzin Passang, National Director, SFT – India, said that the people in Tibet have no basic fundamental human rights. She said that they have launched ‘Write for Rights’ campaign, where we urge the people to write postcards, emails, petitions, Twitter posts to call for the release of political prisoners.

She said, “Today as we commemorate the World Human Rights Day, and it is also the day that His Holiness got his well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize, and we celebrate this day, Day of Freedom, Day of Justice, Day of Rights and Peace, but we should also, we also know that our brothers and sisters back in Tibet have no basic fundamental human rights. They were deprived of that, and then that’s why we are here highlighting and advocating for some of the political prisoners.”

“We are highlighting five political prisoners here today. Some of them have raised their voice or fight for the environmental justice, or some for the language, some for identity and cultures. And that’s why we are here with this campaign where we call it Write for Rights campaign, where we urge the general public to write postcards or emails or petitions, Twitter posts and social media like write everything to advocate for the political prisoners in Tibet and also write for your governors in your own countries or like Chinese authorities, Chinese embassies and write, ask them, demand them to release the political prisoners and give them their own, their justice that they deserve,” she added.