It was a dark and stormy night, the River Wey was in full spate close to overflowing its banks, thus although the turnout was not great and could have been better, it was lucky anyone turned out at all.

 http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/gu-ford.htm

The talk consisted of an introduction by the Director of Free Tibet Stephanie Brigden, who has had experience of working in Tibet on development projects in a remote region of Tibet, a short film Leaving Fear Behind produced by Tibetans in Tibet at great risk to themselves, more on the current situation in Tibet, followed by questions and answers.

In the short time Stephanie Brigden was in Tibet in a remote region she saw change. A region that was all Tibetans flooded with Han Chinese, who took over most of the local businesses.

In the remote regions, the Tibetans are nomads, they travel over great distances, their wealth measured by their flocks of yaks.

These nomads are being denied access to their pastures, forced to sell their yaks and forced to live in the cities.

The Chinese are carrying out cultural genocide. They are forcing the nomads off their lands because of the great mineral wealth that lies beneath the surface. Tibet has vast reserves of copper, gold, aluminum and gas.

The Yulong Copper Mine in Tibet is the second largest copper mine in Asia, with proven copper reserves of 6.5 million tons.

The nomads practiced sustainable living. The Chinese are destroying the fragile Tibetan environment with deforestation, strip mining and dumping of nuclear waste.

Children are forced to learn Chinese, are not educated in their own language.

Tibetans are routinely tortured.

Following the uprising that was brutally put down by the Chinese with a shoot to kill policy, many Tibetans who took part in the protests have disappeared.

Women are tortured by shoving electric shock batons up their vagina.

It is a criminal offence for a Tibetan to posses a portrait of the Dalai Lama, to watch on TV an image of the Dalai Lama.

The film showed Tibetans watching the Dalai Lama on TV.

The film was smuggled into China to be shown in the run up to the Olympic Games.

The Chinese failed to meet their promises on Human Rights that were made to obtain the Olympic Games.

There was supposed to be free access for journalists. Any Tibetans that talked to journalists were arrested and tortured.

Within the last few days, British Foreign Secretary David Milliband has recognised Tibet as part of China. This disgraceful act is on a par with Robin Cook approving the shipment of BAE Systems Hawk ground attack aircraft to Indonesia in the full knowledge that the Hawks were going to be used in East Timor when it was under Indonesian occupation.

The British Government's recognition of Tibet as part of China has had no scrutiny by Parliament, no scrutiny by the media.

Since the uprisings that erupted across Tibet during the run up to the Beijing Olympic Games, Tibet is in lock down. The Dalai Lama has called an emergency meeting to of all exiles to take place this month to discuss the deteriorating situation in Tibet.

The Olympic Games awoke the world to the atrocities that China is committing in occupied Tibet. China is now having difficulty putting the lid back on.

2009 will be an important year. It will be 60 years since China occupied Tibet, 50 years since the Dalai Lama was forced to flee into exile.

Every Wednesday evening, a Tibet Vigil takes place outside the Chinese Embassy in London.

The Chinese economy is collapsing, half the toy factories closed, their workers put out on the street owed back wages, civil unrest is rising.

We do not have to buy Made in China tat.

It was unfortunate that the meeting was not publicised and flyers had not been distributed around Surrey University which has a large Chinese student population as it would have been interesting to expose them to what was said and what is being done in their name and get their reaction.

7.30pm Tuesday 25 November 2008, Amnesty International are hosting a meeting in Guildford at Holy Trinity Church (top of High Street near Sainsbury's) to commemorate 60 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Speakers will include Caroline Lucas MEP, Bruce Kent, Carole Seymour-Jone (chair of PEN).

Websites

 http://www.freetibet.org/
 http://www.tfortibet.org/
 http://www.tibetwatch.org
 http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/
 http://www.hrw.org/
 http://www.amnesty.org.uk/

Background

China orders purge of Tibet's monasteries, Free Tibet, October 2008

Dennis Cusak, Tibet's War of Peace, Brown Door Publishing, 2008

Dalai Lama and Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions, Bloomsbury, 2003

Dalai Lama calls emergency meeting, Free Tibet, October 2008

Forced resettlement threatens Tibetan identity, Free Tibet, October 2008

Leaving freedom behind, Free Tibet, October 2008

Leaving Fear Behind, 2008 {DVD}

Lockdown in Tibet, Free Tibet, October 2008

Mark Thomas, As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela, Ebury Press, 2006
 http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6661110

Torture continues in Tibet, Free Tibet, October 2008