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Free Tibet
Free Tibet (FT) is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation, founded in 1987 and based in London, England. According to their mission statement, Free Tibet advocates for "a free Tibet in which Tibetans are able to determine their own future and the human rights of all are respected."
According to their website, FT campaigns for an "end to China's occupation of Tibet and for international recognition of Tibetans' right to freedom". The organisation is a member of the International Tibet Network (ITN), a worldwide group of affiliated organisations campaigning for human rights and self-determination in Tibet. They mobilize active support for the Tibetan cause, champion human rights, and challenge those whose actions sustain what they see as occupation.
As a result of China's censorship, many political dissenters are arrested and imprisoned for promoting or expressing religious, social, economic, and political principles the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) disapproves of. FT seeks the release of political prisoners through lobbying political leaders, circulating petitions, and organising urgent action campaigns. This approach has been successful in securing the early release of prominent political prisoners such as Phuntso Nyidon, reducing Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's sentence from a death sentence to life in prison and was possibly influential in ensuring Runggye Adak's relatively low-length sentence in 2007. FT maintains a list of current prisoners, released prisoners, and those that have received death sentences.
In its 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: China (Includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet), the U.S. State Department cited FT's report on driver Rinchen Dorjee's release by the CCP authorities after nine months of incommunicado detention in police custody.
In June 2016, FT received reports that Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in eastern Tibet was soon to undergo a series of evictions and demolitions. An order issued by the government of Serta County stated that the population was to be reduced to a maximum of 5,000 residents over the next 15 months, down from the well over 10,000 living there at the time. The order also imposed a system of joint management on the monastery, with Chinese Communist Party officials outnumbering monastic officials three to two under the new regime. The monastery was also required to hand over financial management to Chinese authorities. The work at Larung Gar began on 20 July 2016, as residents were moved out and their residences demolished. Free Tibet was able to garner media attention for the situation at Larung Gar with stories in the BBC, The Times and The New York Times among others. Free Tibet helped to organise a series of world-wide protests at Chinese embassies and also initiated an online petition and various emailing campaigns directed at the United Front Work Department, Chinese embassies and foreign ministers. Following on from these, the situation at Larung Gar was brought up by the US State Department, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission as well as various Canadian and British MPs.
In 2013 FT launched the Parasites in Paradise campaign to protest Intercontinental Hotels' opening of the Lhasa Paradise Hotel in Tibet.
Together with Students for a Free Tibet, FT called for a boycott of InterContinental Hotels, asserting that the Lhasa Paradise Hotel was little more than a "PR coup for the Chinese government" and that the marginalisation of the Tibetan people will only increase with the building of the hotel. On their website Free Tibet writes that, "Intercontinental will sell the image of a peaceful, spiritual and unspoiled land, but after more than 60 years of military occupation by the world's largest dictatorship, Tibet is no paradise." Additionally, it has been argued that the Tibetan people themselves would not benefit from any jobs or opportunities which would be created by the hotel's opening as the hotel's staff will speak Chinese, a language most Tibetans do not speak. Tibetan illiteracy is a major concern of many activists and scholars as Chinese is the language of economic, social, and political life in Tibet.
In addition to the boycott, Free Tibet sent a petition of over 10,500 signatures to InterContinental's chief executive Richard Solomons. The petition called for Solomons to pull InterContinental out of Lhasa because IHG's operation of a hotel in Tibet, where China's human rights violations have been especially prominent, "is in direct contradiction to Intercontinental's Corporate Social Responsibility policies." Free Tibet also organised protests in London in an effort to sway InterContinental.
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Free Tibet
Free Tibet (FT) is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation, founded in 1987 and based in London, England. According to their mission statement, Free Tibet advocates for "a free Tibet in which Tibetans are able to determine their own future and the human rights of all are respected."
According to their website, FT campaigns for an "end to China's occupation of Tibet and for international recognition of Tibetans' right to freedom". The organisation is a member of the International Tibet Network (ITN), a worldwide group of affiliated organisations campaigning for human rights and self-determination in Tibet. They mobilize active support for the Tibetan cause, champion human rights, and challenge those whose actions sustain what they see as occupation.
As a result of China's censorship, many political dissenters are arrested and imprisoned for promoting or expressing religious, social, economic, and political principles the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) disapproves of. FT seeks the release of political prisoners through lobbying political leaders, circulating petitions, and organising urgent action campaigns. This approach has been successful in securing the early release of prominent political prisoners such as Phuntso Nyidon, reducing Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's sentence from a death sentence to life in prison and was possibly influential in ensuring Runggye Adak's relatively low-length sentence in 2007. FT maintains a list of current prisoners, released prisoners, and those that have received death sentences.
In its 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: China (Includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet), the U.S. State Department cited FT's report on driver Rinchen Dorjee's release by the CCP authorities after nine months of incommunicado detention in police custody.
In June 2016, FT received reports that Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in eastern Tibet was soon to undergo a series of evictions and demolitions. An order issued by the government of Serta County stated that the population was to be reduced to a maximum of 5,000 residents over the next 15 months, down from the well over 10,000 living there at the time. The order also imposed a system of joint management on the monastery, with Chinese Communist Party officials outnumbering monastic officials three to two under the new regime. The monastery was also required to hand over financial management to Chinese authorities. The work at Larung Gar began on 20 July 2016, as residents were moved out and their residences demolished. Free Tibet was able to garner media attention for the situation at Larung Gar with stories in the BBC, The Times and The New York Times among others. Free Tibet helped to organise a series of world-wide protests at Chinese embassies and also initiated an online petition and various emailing campaigns directed at the United Front Work Department, Chinese embassies and foreign ministers. Following on from these, the situation at Larung Gar was brought up by the US State Department, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission as well as various Canadian and British MPs.
In 2013 FT launched the Parasites in Paradise campaign to protest Intercontinental Hotels' opening of the Lhasa Paradise Hotel in Tibet.
Together with Students for a Free Tibet, FT called for a boycott of InterContinental Hotels, asserting that the Lhasa Paradise Hotel was little more than a "PR coup for the Chinese government" and that the marginalisation of the Tibetan people will only increase with the building of the hotel. On their website Free Tibet writes that, "Intercontinental will sell the image of a peaceful, spiritual and unspoiled land, but after more than 60 years of military occupation by the world's largest dictatorship, Tibet is no paradise." Additionally, it has been argued that the Tibetan people themselves would not benefit from any jobs or opportunities which would be created by the hotel's opening as the hotel's staff will speak Chinese, a language most Tibetans do not speak. Tibetan illiteracy is a major concern of many activists and scholars as Chinese is the language of economic, social, and political life in Tibet.
In addition to the boycott, Free Tibet sent a petition of over 10,500 signatures to InterContinental's chief executive Richard Solomons. The petition called for Solomons to pull InterContinental out of Lhasa because IHG's operation of a hotel in Tibet, where China's human rights violations have been especially prominent, "is in direct contradiction to Intercontinental's Corporate Social Responsibility policies." Free Tibet also organised protests in London in an effort to sway InterContinental.