TORONTO—While the Olympic torch was run through Lhasa on Saturday, half a world a way supporters of human rights in Tibet lined the street four-people deep in front of the Chinese consulate in Toronto from Friday to Sunday.
Some of the Tibet supporters were Chinese democracy activists, some were Falun Gong practitioners, others were just people that wanted to see human dignity respected in the mountainous Tibetan region.
In the crowd was former Tibetan Buddhist monk Kunga Chodak, who fled China in 1997 because he could no longer bear to have his prayers censored or see his fellow monks disappear.
"We don't know where they are," he said. "If they are dead or alive—we don't know."
In some places, like Kaza Kam monastery, in East Tibet, Chodak says a temple that once had over 300 monks now has only 30.
"We don't know how many people died," he said.
This year two of his cousins in Tibet were killed but the Chinese military refuses to release their bodies and allow the family to give their lost ones a proper burial, he said.
Although Chinese authorities say that Tibetan Buddhists can practice freely in the region, Chodak says prayers are tightly controlled and any acknowledgement of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is prohibited.
"If I pray 'long live the Dalai Lama' they put me in jail."
Some at the rally described how the communist regime locked Lhasa down and conducted a tightly scripted Olympic torch run through the city.
"They had a tonne of security," said Tsering Lama, National Director, Students for a Free Tibet Canada. "They just closed off the area."
Other speakers described how the spectators of the torch run in Lhasa were hand picked by Chinese authorities. People not picked were warned to stay away.
"The slogan of the Beijing Olympic Games is 'one world, one dream," said exiled democracy activist Sheng Xue. "But so many people in this world do not enjoy the dream. For them it is an endless nightmare."
Xue went on to speak of Tibetans being jailed for having pictures of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan nuns being tortured and raped in prison, refugees fleeing Tibet and nearly freezing to death crossing the Himalayas, child workers from Lianshan toiling 18 hours a day and girls being forced into prostitution and other victims of China's communist regime.
Xue urged people to stay away from the Games and not participate in what she described as a "bloody banquet." Although she sympathized with athletes who were eager for their once in a lifetime opportunity to compete, she insisted such a choice should be tempered by a deeper respect for human rights.
"Human rights always, above all."
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