WEDNESDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2014
Tibetan writer and activist Lhaden. (File/TCHRD)
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) has recently obtained a book written by Lhaden, a Tibetan writer and activist living inside Tibet. This latest book, titled ‘Resistance Through Cooperation With Law’ (Tib: Tungol Trimlug’) is Lhaden’s second, published and now being translated into English by TCHRD.
TCHRD presents an excerpt from Lhaden’s latest book translated from its original Tibetan version. He writes under the pseudonym, ‘Di Lhaden’. In this excerpt, Di Lhaden writes about his motivation for writing the book, expresses his belief that Tibet’s non-violent struggle has the potential to achieve genuine peace and reconciliation between the Tibetan people and the Chinese government. Di Lhaden asks the China to acknowledge, rather than violently crush, the legitimate grievances and aspirations of the Tibetan people, which he believes are in accord with the laws and constitution of the People’s Republic of China. He believes that Tibet’s non-violent struggle is inspired by the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
This book represents one of the many voices of millions of Tibetans inside Tibet who live in a system that penalizes human rights activists as criminals and denies basic human rights and freedoms enshrined in the Chinese domestic law and international human rights law. Read in the context of China’s recent rhetoric on rule of law, Lhaden’s book presents a formidable challenge to Chinese claims of respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights according to ‘rule of law’.
The Tibetan language version of this book will be published on 10 December 2014, observed globally as International Human Rights Day. In 2015, TCHRD will publish the full English translation of both the books in hard copy.
Di Lhaden’s first book titled Tsesok Le Trun Pe Kecha (Eng: “Words Uttered With Life On Risk”) was published by TCHRD in March 2011. The book was released on the third anniversary of 2008 Mass Uprising in Tibet and the 16th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland. It took more than three years for Lhaden to finish his first book in which he wrote, “Putting my life at risk, I offer this book as an appeal and a voice of the oppressed”.
