Three Tibetan refugees discussed the Chinese occupation of Tibet Wednesday night at GW Hillel during a panel discussion sponsored by Students for a Free Tibet.
Sonam Dekyi, whose only son is serving an 18-year prison sentence in Tibet, spoke to the audience through an interpreter. Dekyi said Chinese authorities arrested her son Ngawang Choephel, a Fulbright Scholar from Middlebury College, while he was conducting research in Tibet during the fall of 1995. Choephel is in the Nyari detention center in the Tibetan city of Shigatse.
Dekyi said her son was arrested under charges of “illegal separatist activities,” but she said he only was researching Tibetan ethnomusicology, which involved video and tape recording local music.
She said the arrest was unjust because her son did not violate any laws while in Tibet.
Dekyi said Chinese law allows family members to visit prison inmates, but her requests to see her son since his arrest have been denied. Dekyi, who carries a photograph of her son, said she longs for the day when her dream of seeing him will become reality.
“I want you to treat this as an urgent matter and do whatever you can to get my son released as soon as possible,” Dekyi said through the translator.
Tsering Norzum, the former president of the Tibetan Women’s Association, and a member of the Tibetan Parliament in India – where all three refugees have taken exile – also spoke at the event.
Since China’s invasion of Tibet in 1949, the Chinese government has discriminated against Tibetan people, said panelist Tseten Norbu, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress.
Norzum said the People’s Liberation Army and 7.5 million Chinese who settled in Tibet after the invasion have taken over Tibetan land and destroyed its culture.
Norzum said the policies of the Chinese government discriminate against Tibetan people in the area of women’s rights, education, freedom of expression and religion, employment and health care.
The Chinese government has restricted access to women’s health clinics and instituted forced sterilization in many cases, she said.
Norbu spoke about the role of the United States in the Tibetan crisis.
The rising awareness about China’s violations of Tibetan human rights is primarily because of stories like Choephel’s, Norbu said.
Norbu also said Tibetans have tried to solve their problem through peaceful protest but it has been largely ineffective.
He said he has urged the United States to pressure the Chinese to restore Tibetan home rule. Norbu said he believes direct economic pressure from the United States is the only way China will change its policy toward Tibet.
Several non-governmental organizations have organized to promote human rights in Tibet. Norbu said the role of these NGOs is important because they raise concerns about Chinese rule that Tibetans are not allowed to voice.
After the discussion, Dekyi stood in tears as many audience members, moved by her courage and strength, embraced her.
Dekyi spoke the only words of English she knew in a faint, tired voice – “Thank you.”
