Dharamshala February 16- As China’s medal tally reach 6 at the Torino winter games, the hunger strikers of the Tibetan Youth Congress entered into their second day without food. But more than China’s glory media attention converged on the hunger strike led by a feeble Tibetan monk who had spent more than three decades in Chinese prisons.
“The 2nd day of the Hunger Strike started with morning prayers led by Ven. Palden Gyatso la for the happiness of humanity and for the freedom of Tibet. The cold day met with warm mails and telephone calls from all over the world to show their support and convey their good wishes for the hunger strikers’ health and success”, says a Press Release issued by the Tibetan Youth Congress.
Masaka Tsumara, a Japanese filmmaker based in New York had flown to Torino as soon as she heard about Ven. Palden Gyatso’s sitting on hunger strike. Tsumara has been documenting Gyatso’s life story for a while.
Hunger strikers’ demand of ‘No Olympics in China Until Tibet is Free’ has met with educated support from the local community of Torino and even Italy as a whole.
Several journalists have visited the hunger strikers for the second consecutive day. After talking with the organizers and interviewing the hunger strikers, many of them came back, as one of them puts it, “not just to cover an ‘event’ and draft a ‘story’ but to contribute their bit in the freedom struggle of Tibet”.
Speaking to the reporter of Conquiste del Lavoro, the most popular Italian news paper, Sonam Wangdue, one of the hunger strikers and President of Dharamshala Regional Tibetan Youth Congress said that he would be arrested if he was doing the same protest in Tibet.
“Sonam gave reference to the recent arrest of monks and nuns in the ethnically-Tibetan West of Gansu Province, Western China in May 2005 for involvement in the distribution and pasting of protest letters calling for the independence of Tibet and objecting China’s host status of the 2008 Olympics until Tibet’s question is peacefully resolved. According to a Tibet research organisation, Tibet Watch two of the nuns, Tadrin Tsomo and Choekyi Drolma, and one of the monks, Dargye Gyatso, have been sentenced to three years imprisonment while the third nun, Yonten Drolma, and second monk, Jamyang Samdrub, have both been sentenced to one and a half years imprisonment”, the press release said.
Inter Parliamentarian Group for Tibet, Italy, and the President of Amnesty International, Italy will be visiting the hunger strikers tomorrow to convey their solidarity and support for the Tibetan Freedom struggle.
Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), established in 1970, is the largest non-governmental organization within the Tibetan community fighting for the complete independence of Tibet with over 30,000 active members in 80 Regional chapters across the globe.
