TWA makes an earnest and an urgent appeal letter to the Prime Minister of Nepal.
We are making an earnest appeal to seek your intervention regarding an urgent crisis that befalls the Tibetans in exile. The recent arbitrary arrests of the President of the Regional Tibetan Women’s Association, Mrs. Ngawang Sangmo, the Vice-President of the Regional Tibetan Women’s Association, Mrs. Tashi Dolma and the Director of the Tibetan Reception Center, Mr. Kelsang Chung on Thursday, 19 June 2008 and their sentence of 90 days in detention is highly unacceptable. The unprecedented home apprehension and sentencing of the three community leaders without any trial makes the sentencing illegal. This is undoubtedly creating undue and extreme pain, agony and resentment for fellow Tibetans.
The Tibetans in Nepal, wearing their patriotic fervor, took to the streets to protest and voice their resentment over the brutal and violent Chinese clampdown on Tibetans in Tibet. They wish to show their solidarity with the Tibetans living under siege and suffering under the repressive Chinese regime. This is a genuine and peaceful way of showing support for our fellow brothers and sisters. This is closest gesture possible to being a fellow Tibetan. Nepal’s Public Security arrested them on the grounds that they were responsible for the near-daily protests since March. They have been sentenced to 90 days of detention. We see this as an imprudent and crude act on part of the Nepal’s public security. According to civilian security officer Jaya Mukunda Khandal, they have been arrested for damaging diplomatic relations between Nepal and China. We see this as the tragic beginning of a gross, grave and grievous abuse of human rights in Nepal and also as a serious violation of the principles of democracy proudly presented in the preamble of the Nepalese constitution.
We request that the Nepalese security forces refrain from reining in and thwarting the Tibetan people in Nepal for merely expressing their resentment and exercising their basic human rights; freedom of speech and expression. We request your esteemed self to please treat this situation as extremely crucial and intervene to help with the immediate release of the arrested Tibetan leaders. This harsh treatment of the peaceful Tibetan protestors could recoil the Tibetan freedom struggle and the recent arrests has the potential of retarding the growing Tibetan Nationalistic struggle. This could severely compromise centuries of socio-cultural harmonic relationship between Tibet and Nepal. We also make an earnest and an urgent appeal to the Human Rights advocates and the International body of Law and Justice to look into this crucial case and address our concerns to stop the debacle of International Human Rights Law in Nepal and significantly to avert the looming threat and danger that befalls Tibet and Tibetans. We are positive that our appeal in this regards will be the one that you will give your prime thought, importance and priority to. We are going through a very critical period in our history and we deem your support indispensable. Please help us in facing the darkest period of our history.
Tibetan Women's Association (TWA) has 49 regional chapters and over 15, 000 members outside Tibet. Today, TWA is the second largest Tibetan NGO and the only women’s NGO in our exile that advocates human rights for Tibetan women in Tibet and empowerment of Tibetan women in exile, particularly the new refugee women from Tibet.