Tibetan Freedom Torch Visits Colorado Springs
Trip Start
Sep 27, 2008
1
3
12
Trip End
Dec 02, 2008
Colorado Springs,
Colorado,
United States
Thursday, June 26, 2008
"Just got back from the Tibetan Freedom Torch Relay event. The symbolic torch was cycled down from the state capital in Denver yesterday before arriving at Colorado Springs city hall this morning. After some photo ops and general instructions more than a hundred of us (mostly Tibetans) marched two miles to the Olympic Committee headquarters where we met with a representative of the committee's PR department. He was presented with a petition asking the U.S. Olympic Committee to forbid the real Olympic torch from entering Tibet. The gist being that the Tibetan people feel that that would be totally inappropriate after 60 years of brutal oppression by the Chinese government.
The whole day was a profoundly moving experience
At City Hall
. At one point a Tibetan woman got up to speak to the crowd. She thanked us all for being there, especially the few Americans who were there to show support. She then pleaded with the immigrant Tibetans not to become complacent while living "comfortable lives" in the United States, thereby forgetting the daily struggles of their brothers and sisters who remain in Tibet. She became so emotional that she lapsed into an passionate speech in Tibetan. I had no idea what she was saying but many people (myself included) began to weep."Since then, the official Olympic Torch was paraded through Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, on June 21st, 2008. According to news reports the torch was under heavy military guard and Tibetans were conspicuously missing along the parade route.
The Chinese government continues to deny allegations of any human rights violations in Tibet before or after this year's peaceful protests began on March 10th.
For more on this story go to http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=21464&t=1.
