By Ossian Shine
TURIN, February 4 – Tibetan exiles in Turin are to go on hunger strike for the duration of the Winter Olympics in protest at the Chinese government, hosts of the 2008 Summer Games.
The exiles staged a peaceful protest in Turin’s Piazza Palazzo di Citta on Saturday and said they would fast from Feb. 10 to 26.
“This protest is not against the people of China but against the policies of the Chinese government,” Choephel Tamding, one of the hunger strikers, told Reuters.
“We want to say ‘no’ to the Olympics in China until China respects human rights.
“We want freedom of speech, freedom of religion… we want the International Olympic Committee to know we don’t agree with the 2008 Games being in China the way it is today.
“If we don’t get any response from the International Olympic Committee we will continue the hunger strike,” the 40-year-old Tibetan added.
More than 100 supporters gathered in the square to chant and bang drums as police watched from the side of the piazza.
More police worked away in the background, inspecting manhole covers before workmen sealed them up, smelting them with blowtorches as security was tightened ahead of the Games.
President of the Italian Tibet Association Guenther Cologna said the group would organise a series of demonstrations during the Olympics to demand respect for human rights in Tibet, which has been occupied by China for some 50 years.
