Fifty Years On - Tibetan Freedom March, London, March 7

Fifty years ago, Palden Gyatso was a young ordained monk in Lhasa, where he took part in peaceful demonstrations that were met by brutal repression from the Chinese authorities. Over 80,000 Tibetans were killed in this 'Tibetan People's Uprising' and while the Dalai Lama fled the country and began to make the truth of what was happening known to the world, many others were jailed.

Palden spent 33 years in prison and labour camps from 1959 to 1992, where he suffered beatings and inhumane torture that have left him permanently damaged. His Buddhist principles kept him going through his imprisonment and torture and his autobiography is the basis for a film, 'Fire Under the Snow', which received its London premiere on Sunday.

Fifty years on, Tibetans still suffer the same kind of brutal repression, with thousands missing after the demonstrations in Tibet last year, and hundreds serving lengthy prison sentences.

Many of the several thousand taking part in Saturday's 'Tibet Freedom March' carried Tibetan flags; two months ago, a young Tibetan, Pema Tsepak, who carried one in his own town was beaten to death.

At the start of the march, opposite the Chinese Embassy in Portland Place, Palden took a letter to the Chinese Ambassador, Madam Fu Ying, but police would not allow him to deliver it (it was sent later.) In it Palden told her that when he came to the UK in 1995, the then Chinese ambassador wrote in a letter to a newspaper "Palden Gyatso's story of how he was tortured by prison guards is untrue,. Torture is forbidden in Chinese prisons." With his letter Palden includes documentation confirming his torture and his autobiography and comments that the denial of the facts about how Tibetans are treated is shameful of the Chinese government.

Palden ended his letter to the Ambassador by noting that although the Dalai Lama has declared that the way forward for Tibet is not independence but a "Middle-Way" approach of Tibet living within China, the Chinese "government continues to fill Tibetans. Your government must be accountable to all these deliberate actions."

After the trip across the road to the Chinese embassy, the march led of down past Oxford Circus and on to a rally in Trafalgar Square. Among the placards they carried were those saying '50 years of Resistance - Tibet will never die' and 'Stop the Torture in Tibet', but one that stood out for me was hand-written: 'Olympics been & gone - Where is One World One Dream Now?'

More pictures on My London Diary shortly:
 http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2009/03/mar.htm#tibet