Published by: World Tibet Network News, Thursday, Apr 18, 1996
From: Deke Samchok FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PROTEST AGAINST CHINESE LEADER QIAO SHI:
"Mr. Merciless Repression"
Friday April 19, 1996
5:30 - 7:30 pm
Imperial Chinese Seafood Restaurant
355 Burrard St. (at Hastings)
The Canada Tibet Committee will stage a protest against the visit of Qiao Shi, Chairman of China's National People's Congress. Qiao Shi, one of China's most senior leaders, was officially invited by the Canadian government and is being received as a VIP. We are deeply dismayed that once again a representative of the brutal Chinese regime has been invited here as a special guest of Canada, and that so many leaders, including Prime Minister Chretien, Raymond Chan and Premier Glen Clark have agreed to meet with him. We will attempt to hand-deliver a letter to Mr. Shi when he arrives for the dinner reception hosted by Raymond Chan, a former human rights activist.
We reject the claim that Qiao is a moderate -- although the Canadian government and other have presented him in that light. As far as Tibetans are concerned, Qiao Shi's hands are as bloody as those of Li Peng's. In July 1988, as China's security chief, Qiao visited Tibet and made a widely reported speech in which he announced Beijing's change in policy toward Tibet "from lenient to severe", and called for "merciless repression" of all forms of protest against Chinese rule in Tibet. While in Tibet he set up an elite detachment of the People's Armed Police (PAP) which was specially trained to crush anti-China protests, and which subsequently killed between 80 and 150 unarmed Tibetan demonstrators during the March 1989 massacre in Lhasa.
We hold Qiao Shi responsible for the deaths of those Tibetans, and for the imprisonment and torture of thousands more people who were arrested after the massacre in house to house raids carried out by the PAP. It is an outrage that this man who is responsible for the loss of so many Tibetan lives is being so honoured by our Canadian government. Such a privilege has never been accorded to the Dalai Lama, a true man of peace and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to finding a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Tibet.
We demand that the Chinese government immediately release all Tibetan political prisoners, including the 6-year-old Gendhun Choekyi Nyima who has been missing since May 1995. Furthermore, we demand the restoration of basic human rights in Tibet, such as freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and the freedom to call for Tibet's independence from China.
For further information contact:
Deke Samchok (604) 732-9910 home
(604) 231-2549 office
