By Tim McDevitt
NEW YORK – “China-China, the world is watching you!” shouted a crowd of about one thousand students Friday afternoon outside the Chinese Consulate on West 42nd Street.
On any given day, you will find outside the Chinese Consulate, practitioners of Falun Gong. They do the slow-motion Falun Gong exercises and, with their meditative silence and occasional flyers, protest the ban imposed on the nonviolent practice since 1999.
On Friday, however, the Chinese Consulate faced a whole new group of people fed up with the Chinese Communist Parties treatment of their own people.
The group occupying the sidewalk changed, but the message to China remained loud and clear.
“What do we want?” “Human Rights Now!” the crowd shouted as one of their chants.
The protesters, mostly high school and college students, were members of Amnesty International from all over the Northeastern United States. They were participating in the tenth annual “Get On The Bus” event—an annual trip to the consulates of countries with the most egregious human rights offenses.
The three consulates the group visited on Friday were India, Jamaica, and China. “Every year we finish at the Chinese consulate,” said Amy Lipman, 34, from Boston, in town for the day of protest.
The Amnesty International group, armed with bullhorns, shouted chants and waved signs, were penned in by police barricades. About a dozen police were on hand to keep the peace.
The case of Tenzin Delek was of primary concern to Amnesty members. Delek, a community and religious leader from Tibet, was arrested in a monastery in 2002. The Chinese government accused him of planting a bomb in Chengdu province. Delek was also accused by the Chinese government of distributing separatist leaflets inciting Tibetan independence.
Initially sentenced to death by Chinese courts, his sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in January, following intense international pressure. The Amnesty group is now asking he be freed altogether.
“There is no reason he should be in prison. There is no evidence he has done what he is accused of,” said Matthew Presto, 18, of Windsor, New Jersey. “Simply because he is Tibetan and has the power to promote a more peaceful society is no reason to imprison him.”
