Thousands of people marched in the streets of Taipei yesterday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising and show their support for Tibetans’ struggle for freedom.
“We Tibetans have been in exile for 50 years. The Chinese government tries hard to make us forget who we are — but we will not,” Regional Tibetan Youth Congress Taiwan chairman Tashi Tsering told the crowd before the march began.
“I was born in exile, but I never forget who I am, what my country is, and we all firmly believe that Tibet will become independent again,” Tashi said, as the crowd answered with a resounding “Free Tibet!”
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
Nine years after China invaded Tibet in 1950, Tibetans launched an uprising during which the Tibetan political and religious leader, the Dalai Lama, went into exile in India, with tens of thousands of Tibetans following.
Tibetans continued to fight Chinese rule, resulting in more than 1.2 million deaths, Tibet support groups and the Tibetan government in exile have said.
The march started at the Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station in Taipei and went through busy shopping districts.
Many shoppers joined in.
“Tibetans want to go home,” “China, get out of Tibet!” the demonstrators shouted as they marched, holding Tibetan flags, a large portrait of the Dalai Lama and various placards.
At 3:10pm, the procession stopped and observed a minute of silence for Tibetans killed in their struggle for freedom.
Several key figures from the Democratic Progressive Party took part in the rally.
Chinese democracy activist Cai Lujun (蔡陸軍) was also among the crowd.
“Opposing dictatorship and tyranny is a universal value that goes beyond nationalities or races,” Cai said. “Ignoring what’s going on in Tibet today is ignoring what will happen to Taiwan tomorrow.”
Aside from showing their usual support for Tibetans, many demonstrators this year voiced their worries about Taiwan’s future.
“We can see that freedom of speech and freedom of press are deteriorating in Taiwan, especially after Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] took over as president [last year],” said Eric Chang (張浩明), a young demonstrator. “If we don’t stand up now, our fate could be the same as that of Tibetans.”
Weng Chih-ming, a 31-year-old technology company engineer, said he supported Tibet out of a sense of justice as a human being, adding that he didn’t want Taiwan to fall “under China’s dictatorship.”
An elementary school teacher surnamed Fu (傅) expressed similar concerns.
“I don’t want Taiwan to become like Tibet … I don’t want our next generation to live a hard life under Chinese rule,” Fu said.
Erinn Law, a Canadian who has been living in Taiwan for five years, echoed Chang’s view.
“Not enough people know about what’s going on [in Tibet], so we need to [speak up],” she said, clearly excited by the large crowd that had gathered for this year’s event.
“I don’t want what happened to Tibet to happen to Taiwan, because I love Taiwan,” she said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AP
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
RSS