Welcome to Santa Barbara Friends of Tibet. Our mission is to encourage a community in Santa Barbara and throughout the world that will perform actions to promote human rights and freedoms in Tibet. We do this four-ways:
- We contact United States and Chinese political leaders, write letters and sign petitions that help Tibet and human rights in China.
- We support other national and international Tibet organizations.
- We enhance public awareness of Tibet through education and events.
- We help Tibetan refugees both here and abroad. If you can promise to take action steps for Tibet then you are invited to join and follow this group. Read below some of the issues in Tibet that need your support. Give us permission and we will sign all the petitions for you.
No Beijing 2022 : Take Action
Join the growing call for governments to boycott the Beijing 2022 Olympics; anything less will be seen as support for the Chinese government’s brutal occupation of Tibet and blatant disregard for human rights.
Tibet is a country, in the center of Asia
With a landmass of 2.5 million square kilometers; it is the 10th largest nation in the world. It is illegally occupied by China.
China called the illegal invasion the ‘Peaceful Liberation of Tibet’. China has now occupied Tibet for almost a lifetime; a lifetime in which to win Tibetan hearts and minds, to weaken the influence of the exiled Dalai Lama, and to assimilate Tibet into mainland China.
The elevation of Xi Jinping in 2012 brought no positive changes in human rights, rather the reverse. The Chinese government has been increasingly hostile towards human rights defenders, unleashing a harsh crackdown on civil society, especially in Tibet. In July 2015, these policies resulted in the prison death of prominent Tibetan Buddhist leader, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, who had been persecuted and incarcerated for life on trumped-up criminal charges.
China has been unable to crush a new wave of dissent that began in 2008, during the Beijing Olympics, when Tibetans across the plateau rose up in the most widespread and resolute demonstrations yet; a clear denunciation of Chinese rule.
The overwhelmingly peaceful protests of 2008 were characterized by the participation of young people, many carrying photographs of the Dalai Lama and calling for his return.
Despite a savage crackdown, and Xi Jinping’s promise to “fight against separatist activities” and “completely destroy any attempt to undermine stability in Tibet”, protests continue today, including a tragic wave of self-immolations where the overwhelming majority of protesters have lost their lives, calling for freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama.
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