Photo: Facebook
Tenzin Tsundue, the well-known activist and author, is currently on a one-months peaking tour of Europe. His tour started in Geneva, Switzerland on April 4 with an appearance at the fourteenth annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy which took place from April 4-6.
Tsundue posted on his Facebook page that before the summit he had almost been arrested after posing with both the Tibet and Uyghur national flags in front of the UN building; both flags were confiscated by UN security. In the post he commented that he wished that he had been arrested. The Summits’ panel on the struggle for Human Rights in China was moderated by Luke de Pulford, the human rights campaigner with a particular interest in modern slavery and human rights abuses in China. The panel included Rhushan Abbas, a Nobel-nominated activist and founder of the Campaign for Uyghurs and Hong Kong activist Joey Siu who was arrested for protesting at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. In his ten-minute speech, Tsundue stated that he believes that there has to be another way, that solidarity is the way forward since it can empower us because we understand each other’s pain and suffering. “Take this suffering as a pride to work for freedom and human rights and so the enemy will start to feel insecure. We will be free and independent, and I believe this. Peace will once again rise.”
Tenzin Tsundue and other activists at the Geneva Summit for Human rights and Democracy on April 6, 2022
Photo: Facebook
In the summit’s afternoon session, former National Basketball Association player and Nobel Peace Prize nominee and human rights activist Enes Kanter Freedom was presented with the 2022 Summit Courage Award in recognition of his “heroic efforts to be the voice of the voiceless”. Before the summit Tsundue and Kanter were both honoured for their efforts by the Tibet Bureau in Geneva and later by members of the Tibetan community in Switzerland and Liechtenstein (TCSL). During the rest of his time in Switzerland Tsundue attended various talks and receptions, speaking about the individual responsibility of each Tibetan in the freedom movement, the international community’s perception of China and, at an event in Zürich organised by the Tibetan Youth Congress, the history of Indo-Chinese relations.
On April 10, Tsundue left for Sweden, where, three days later, he spoke at the Department of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg on the creative use of culture in Tibet as a means of resistance against the Chinese occupation of Tibet. He remained in Sweden until April 17, when his tour will continue in Norway, Denmark, Spain and the Czech Republic. He is scheduled to return to India on April 29.
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