Friends of Tibet

1949

…when the whole world was sleeping…

…and busy fighting battles across the globe…

…Tibet… a peaceful, spiritual country…

...and one of the few nations in the world with

a long…

…history of continued independence…

…was overtaken by Chinese military invasion.

China’s unprovoked act of aggression on Tibet

resulted...

...in the death of more than 10 lakh Tibetans…

...and the complete destruction of more

than…

...6,000 ancient libraries and Buddhist universities.

In 1959 HH the XIV Dalai Lama, the spiritual and

temporal leader of Tibet…

…was forced to seek political asylum in India with more than 80,000 ordinary

Tibetans.

Since then Tibet has never been the same and lives of all Tibetans has changed

entirely.

Faced with brutal oppression and treated as

second-class citizens in their own country…

…around 3,000 Tibetans escape their homeland

across the Himalayas each year.

China’s discrimination and suppression of religion and

human rights still continues.

A high proportion of political prisoners in Tibet

today are nuns and monks.

Tibetan language is being replaced with Chinese in all schools in occupied Tibet.

Party officials still conduct “Patriotic Re-Education” in monasteries throughout

Tibet.

In 1996 China banned Dalai Lama’s photographs,

films and his speeches.

China continues to transfer landless and jobless Chinese

to Tibet to outnumber Tibetans...

…and continues the dumping of chemical and nuclear waste destroying

the fragile ecology.

Most of China’s nuclear missiles and nuclear labs are based on the Tibetan

plateau.

Under China Tibet is being colonised like Afganistan,

Iraq, Chechnia and Palestine!

Meanwhile the struggle for independence continues inside Tibet and in exile.

It is no longer just a question of helping an oppressed

people. Today the question of…

…Tibetan independence is inseparably linked to India’s

long-term future.

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