Downtown rally, march, and protest planned for Tibetan Uprising Day

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      A Vancouver rally and subsequent march and protest is planned for March 10 to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of Tibetan Uprising Day.

      The event is being organized and supported by the Canada Tibet Committee, Students for a Free Tibet, and the B.C. Tibetan community, according to a March 2 news release.

      On March 10, 1959, the People's Liberation Army of China responded with deadly force to an uprising in Lhasa, Tibet's capital city. The Dalai Lama, Tibet's head of state and spiritual leader, escaped to India. Tibet had previously undergone what many regarded as annexation by China in 1951.

      A noon rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery's south plaza (by the stairs below the cafe) will be followed by a 1 p.m. march over the Granville Street Bridge to the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China at 3380 Granville Street.

      A protest is scheduled outside the consulate general from 2 to 5 p.m.

      The following text accompanied the release from rally organizers:

      "Tibetans continue to reject and actively resist Chinese government rule, through protests, cultural resistance in forms such as poetry, songs and other writings, environmental actions to stop unregulated mining, and resistance to the relocation and resettlement of Tibetan nomads. In 2008 thousands of Tibetans rose up in a public demonstration of resistance against China’s occupation of Tibet. For several months after March 2008 the Tibetan Plateau was swept by widespread protests by Tibetans from all walks of life. These uprisings heralded a transformation in the strength and breadth of Tibetan nonviolent resistance that continues today in myriad forms, and to which the Chinese government has responded with a wholesale crackdown, permeating Tibetans’ everyday lives with its security apparatus and violating a wide range of human rights.

      The human rights situation in Tibet has declined dramatically with the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, religion and privacy highly restricted. For the eighth consecutive year, Tibet has ranked amongst the worst places in the world for freedom and human rights, tied with Syria and South Sudan as least free places in the world.1"

      1 Freedom in the World 2022. https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores

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