STUDENTS FROM SERTHAR APPEALS FOR HELP,
says Tuesday, June 26 is Deadline for Expulsions
26 June, 2001: A student from Serthar has sent an appeal for international help, saying that Tuesday, June 26 is the deadline for more than 7,000 monks and students to leave the encampment.
The appeal says that all of the Han Chinese students and all of the foreign students must leave by June 26. Students from Taiwan, Singapore and elsewhere had been studying at Serthar. After June 26, the huts will be pushed over, the account says.
The appeal identifies “Minister Wang” as the official who has ordered the expulsions, and says there are now 4,000 soldiers stationed near Serthar. It also says that the academy at Serthar was forced to stop classes on June 6.
The appeal says that this information should be sent to newspapers and human rights organizations and that reporters and the international community should closely monitor the situation there.
John Ackerly
International Campaign for Tibet
1825 K St., NW, Suite 520
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: 202-785-1515
Fax 202-785-4343
www.savetibet.org
Honour for Tibet work
The National Points of Light Volunteer Award programme is recognising Richard Rosenkranz, a Roseland resident, for his work on behalf of religious freedom in Tibet.
Richard, 59, President of World Tibet Day Foundation was chosen to be one of the program’s daily points of light. On July 3, a write-up of Rosenkranz’s work will be on the Points of Light Foundation Web site, programme officials said.
“This is a great honour, especially for the Tibet cause,” said Rosenkranz, who is a native of the United States and resident of Indian River County, since 1978. In recent years he has devoted himself, and his income, to building public sentiments against the Chinese oppression of the Tibetan people.
From his home, Rosenkranz uses the Internet, mail and personal appearances to push for wider public support for his Interfaith Call for Universal Freedom of Worship and for Human Rights in Tibet. This year the Call will be observed Oct. 28 by more than 250,000 people in many nations, he said. In addition to the Interfaith Call, he is also being honoured as the founder of World Tibet Day, being observed this year in over 50 cities in 20 countries.
He also organises the Interfaith Call a second time in the U.S., in March as part of another annual event, the spring-time Season for Non-Violence, which lasts for 64 days. The bookends on that event are the deaths of two of the 20th Century’s leading non-violence leaders: India’s Mohandas Gandhi and United States civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
Former U.S. President Bush originated the Points of Light recognition programme during his administration in the early 1990s. His successor, former President Bill Clinton, continued it. Programme officials pick recipients from nominations sent in by the general public.