Tibetan delegates attend Taiwan International Religious Freedom Forum
DHARAMSALA, 3 June: Two Tibetan delegates have attended the Taiwan International Religious Freedom Forum co-hosted by the Freedom House, Center for Religious Liberty, Victims of Communism, and the International Religious Freedom Roundtable in Taiwan’s Hsinchu Cty.
Ngodup Tsering, Representatives of Office of Tibet, Washington DC and Dawa Tsering, the Dalai Lama’s representative at the Office of Tibet in Taipei were attended the three-day forum held over 30 May to 1 June along with other dignitaries, including former United States Solicitor General Kenneth Starr and by Members of the European Parliament Bastiaan Belder and Csaba Sogor.
Representative Ngodup Tsering spoke with a power point presentation on the current situation in Tibet under the repressive Chinese Communist regime with emphasis on ethnic oppression and religious persecution in Tibet while Representative Dawa Tsering addressed the gathering of Chinese people on Tibetan situations at the afternoon session which was Vice President of Taiwan, Chen Chien-jen, reports tibet.net, the official website of Central Tibetan Administration.
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen attended the forum on the morning of 30 May and in her address, she has stated that Taiwan walked a dark path on the road to religious freedom referring to the Kuomintang’s ban on local languages and harassment of religious leaders, the Taiwan Times reported.
“The freedom we enjoy today is built on the blood, sweat, and tears of our predecessors. So we in Taiwan know better than anyone how precious freedom is,” President Tsai has said.
She hopes that all of those who care about freedom, democracy, and peace can come to know each other better through dialogue and can work together to achieve global religious freedom, the report added.
Vice President Chen, in his closing address, emphasized on how Taiwan had achieved a freedom of religion which most took to be at normal as the elements of nature, but in other countries, specifically China, repression and persecution were still the fate of those seeking religious expression in his closing remarks, according to the report.
“Oppressive regimes like China should understand that the more people live without fear, the safer, the more peaceful, the more prosperous a country can grow.”
The forum expressed its deep concern about “the substantial, credible, and growing body of unrefuted evidence that the Communist Party of China has authorized and sanctioned – and continues to carry out – a systematic program of ‘organ harvesting’ with a horrific and cruel loss of human loss.”
The forum declaration called on the public to adhere to a pledge not to “receive or accept, directly or indirectly, any organ transplant from China.”
The Tibetan spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who was also invited to the event, could not attend but wrote a letter expressing his regrets, the report added.
“Religious freedom is a basic human right. I am happy to observe that in a robust democracy like Taiwan, the law protects and defends human rights,” the Dalai Lama wrote.
