Chandigarh, November 14 – Tibetan students belonging to Regional Tibetan Youth Congress (RTYC) today started a week-long hunger strike at the Sector 17 Plaza to press for their demand for immediate release of all political prisoners in Tibet, including Tulku Tenzin Delek.
Before beginning the hunger strike, the Tibetan students took out a rally and reached Sector 17. There they raised slogans against the Chinese authorities and demanded immediate release of Delek, who has been sentenced to death by the Chinese government.
RTYC president Tenzin Norsang informed Newsline that the students would also organise mass signature campaigns, which would be sent to the UN and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to urge them to pressurise the Chinese government for the release of Delek.
Norsang said the RTYC would encourage the people to get online at the Tibetan Youth Congress website and participate in fax jam, phone jam and e-mail campaigns targeted at the Chinese embassies worldwide.
He said the hunger strike would continue till November 20 following seven days of campaigning and activities.
He said the case of Delek was the culmination of a decade-long effort by the Chinese authorities to curb his efforts to foster Tibetan Buddhism, his support for the spiritual leader Dalai Lama and his work to develop Tibetan social and cultural institutions.
Norsang said that Delek was wrongly condemned, unfairly tried and unlawfully sentenced to death for crimes which he did not commit.
