Czech towns to join Flag for Tibet

Monday, February 23, 2009

Czech News Agency (ČTK)
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Kladno, Central Bohemia, Feb 21 (CTK) - A number of Central Bohemian towns will join the Flag for Tibet campaign recalling the 50th anniversary of Tibetans' uprising against the Chinese Communist rule, the Kladno town hall told CTK Saturday.

The annual peaceful protest marks the events of 1959 when China suppressed an uprising in Lhasa.

The event will also be joined by the Central Bohemian towns of Beroun, Rakovnik and Slany, their representatives have told CTK.

Czech supporters of Tibet have been regularly hoisting the Tibetan flag since 1996 and the number of town halls that join the protest has been growing by the year.

"The nation is being exposed to the gross violation of human rights even after 50 years of occupation," Kladno Mayor Dan Jiranek said.

"This is why we consider it right to support at least symbolically its effort to achieve freedom," Jiranek said, adding that there would be the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution against the Communist regime.

In Slany, the flag donated by the Czech Presidential Office will be hoisted.

"It is one of the four flags donated to the Presidential Office by Dalai Lama himself while on a visit to former president Vaclav Havel," Slany Mayor Ivo Rubik told CTK.

Moreover, there will be the Days of Tibetan Culture on March 3-April 3 in Slany, Rubik said.

The programme will include meetings, exhibitions, tasting of Tibetan meal and shows of Tibetan old print techniques, he added.

Some 80,000 Tibetans died during the 1959 uprising in Lhasa. Tibetan activists say Beijing suppresses traditional culture in Tibet and seek autonomy or independence of Tibet.