More than 2,000 Tibetan exiles attended a prayer service in Kathmandu on Thursday to commemorate the 46th anniversary of a failed uprising in the Tibetan capital Lhasa against Chinese rule.
The Tibetan Buddhist prayer service accompanied by religious chanting and music was held at the 50-year-old Samdeling Monastery at Bodhnath in the northeastern suburb of the Nepalese capital.
“We offered prayers for those who have given their lives for the cause of Tibet,” said Tibetan exiles leader Wangchuk Tsering, who also read out a statement of the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.
Tsering said Tibetans anywhere in the world observe the uprising day with the biggest celebration being held in the Himalayan town of Dharmashala in northern India, where the Dalai Lama resides in exile.
At the entrance of the monastery in Kathmandu, Tibetan youths sold T-shirts with messages, including some with “Hello Tibet” on the front and “Bye-Bye China” on the back.
In the past, Tibetan exiles in Nepal marked the Tibetan People’s Uprising Day with religious prayers, anti-China protests and calls to free Tibet.
Nepal, which shares a 1,414-kilometer-long border with the Tibetan Autonomous Region in China, is home to around 20,000 Tibetan refugees, many of whom fled with the Dalai Lama after the 1959 uprising, Tsering said.
Nepal does not accept new Tibetan refugees. According to an accord reached between Nepal and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, fleeing Tibetan refugees are allowed to enter Nepal but they have to subsequently go elsewhere.
Hundreds of Tibetans still make daring escapes across the Himalayas annually.
In January, the Nepalese government ordered the closure of the Dalai Lama’s representative office in the Nepalese capital.
In his statement on the 46th anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising Day, the Dalai Lama said that despite the great changes in Tibet in the past four decades, the Tibetan people “have been facing suspicions and growing restrictions.”
“The lack of true ethnic equality and harmony based on trust, and the absence of genuine stability in Tibet clearly shows that things are not well in Tibet,” he said.
“I once again want to reassure the Chinese authorities that as along as I am responsible for the affairs of Tibet, we remain fully committed to the Middle Way Approach of not seeking independence for Tibet and are willing to remain within the People’s Republic of China,” the Tibetan temporal leader said.
