TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Tibetan groups and human rights advocates in Taiwan held a protest Sunday outside the Bank of China’s Taipei branch to mark one month since Tibetan activist Loga Rangzen’s self-immolation protest outside United Nations headquarters in New York.
Rangzen, a Tibetan exile, carried out the protest following China’s implementation of its ethnic unity law. At the urging of his family, Tibetan groups launched a global action day in his honor, calling for greater solidarity between the Tibetan exile community and human rights organizations to oppose what they described as China’s repression, per LTN.
During Sunday’s demonstration, protesters lay down in front of the bank to symbolize Rangzen’s sacrifice.
The Human Rights Network for Tibet and Taiwan, the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association, and other Taiwanese human rights groups jointly held a press conference outside the Bank of China branch to protest China’s passage of the act.
Kelsang Gyaltsen Bawa, chair of the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, said Rangzen sacrificed his life to show the world that Tibetans have endured tremendous suffering in defense of their freedom, faith, and national dignity.
“We call upon all those who cherish human rights and freedom to take to the streets, to roar against China’s tyranny, and to ask the United Nations: How many more Tibetan lives must be sacrificed?” he said. “Silence is not neutrality, but rather condoning tyranny.”
Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲) criticized the ethnic unity law as a serious violation of human rights, saying laws in democratic countries regulate external behavior to protect public order rather than control people’s thoughts or family lives, per LTN.
Lee said China’s definition of progress includes the detention of Uyghurs in re-education camps, the erosion of Tibetan religious culture, the placement of Tibetan children in state-run boarding schools, and threats against Taiwan’s sovereignty.
He said China views allowing ethnic minorities to preserve and choose their own cultures as backward. “If this is what barbarism means, then I have no choice but to take pride in being barbaric,” Lee said.
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