Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Human Rights Network for Tibet and Taiwan/Facebook
TIBETAN UPRISING DAY was commemorated in Taipei on Saturday, March 7th outside of the Zhongxiao Fuxing SOGO. Tibetan Uprising Day is commemorated annually to memorialize a protest by around 10,000 Tibetans on March 10th, 1959 to demonstrate against the CCP’s annexation of Tibet. The protest was subsequently cracked down on by Chinese military forces. This year marked the 67th anniversary of Tibetan Uprising Day.
Tibetan Uprising Day, then, as an annual event, serves to gather much of Taiwanese civil society each year. As with preceding years, Tibetan Uprising Day commemorations were preceded by a cycling activity intended to raise awareness of the situation faced by Tibetans. As this year’s demonstration for Tibetan Uprising Day did not take place on the actual date of March 10th, a candlelight ceremony was held in Liberty Plaza on March 10th, while March 7th took the form of protest march that moved through Taipei.
In comments, organizers were critical of the continued oppression faced by Tibetans at the hands of the CCP. As such, self-immolations still continue to take place in Tibet as a form of protest. As many Tibetans in Taiwan are from the Tibetan diaspora communities who live in exile, some participants also highlighted that because of the CCP’s political control, they had never lived in their homeland.
Likewise, participants were critical of the CCP’s attempt to subordinate Tibetan Buddhism to religious control. The Panchen Lama, as the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism, was kidnapped by the CCP and his whereabout remain unknown. Instead, the CCP appointed its own Panchen Lama, who is consequently not acknowledged as a genuine religious authority by many Tibetans.
Livestream of the demonstration
To this extent, with it expected that the Dalai Lama will pass away in coming years, it is thought that the CCP will attempt to control the selection process to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation. As such, it is believed that the CCP will eventually put forward its own Dalai Lama to try and claim legitimacy over Tibetan Buddhism.
Other actions by the Chinese government directed toward Tibetans are in line with its broader colonialism. This includes the attempt to stamp out the Tibetan language and culture through the use of boarding schools, the destruction of religious sites such as temples, and dam construction that displaces local communities. Moreover, the DNA of Tibetans has been collected by the CCP for invasive research purposes, as has often occurred to Indigenous people across the world.
It remains to be seen how to raise awareness of the situation faced by Tibetans among Taiwanese, then. Notably, over the past decades, it has sometimes been difficult to remind the public that the atrocities faced by Tibetans have not faded but continue. Similarly, Tibetans are sometimes at the receiving end of harassment from pro-CCP political actors in Taiwan. This was the case this year as well, with a man throwing firecrackers during the vigil at Liberty Plaza. Such incidents point to how the harassment of Tibetans extends to within Taiwan.