Pro-Tibet Activists to Hold Candlelit Event

By Sergey Chernov

Staff Writer
The St. Petersburg Times

Tuesday,05-August-2008: Local pro-Tibet activists will join Candle for Tibet, a Dalai Lama-blessed global protest to be held around the world on the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games on Thursday, at 9 p.m. local time.

Global organizers are expecting millions to take part in what they describe as the “world’s greatest light protest” to raise their voices for Tibetan freedom.

“The most important goal is to draw attention to the Tibet issue, to show sympathizers in the city that we exist and to show the world that such action is possible in Russia,” said Yelena Kim, the activist behind the local leg of the campaign, speaking by phone on Monday.

“The lack of protests does not mean that Russian citizens are indifferent to the issue of Tibet and what is happening there.”

However, the St. Petersburg authorities have warned that no protests during the Olympic Games will be tolerated, according to Kim.

“We were told by a Smolny [City Hall] official not to organize any protests during the Olympics,” Kim said referring to Thursday’s event. “We would fail to coordinate with the authorities any mass protest, if we tried to.”

Kim expects about 50 people to take part in Thursday’s candlelit event in St. Petersburg.

“It’s quite a dangerous thing, and many people would prefer to meditate on this issue or light a candle at home, rather than in a public place,” she said.

According to Kim, the local event is planned to take place on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main street, on the small area between Kanal Griboyedova, the Dom Knigi bookstore and the Kazan Cathedral.

“It will be easy to escape from there [if the police interfere].”

The Russian authorities and state-controlled media share a pro-China position on human rights abuses in Tibet, according to the activists.

“I think [the protests are banned and suppressed] for economic reasons, rather than political ones,” Kim said.

“But on the whole there’s a problem with democracy [in Russia], that’s why they ban things.”

Local authorities banned a planned pro-Tibet rally during the Olympic Torch relay in St. Petersburg in April, while several single protesters, including Kim and the democratic party Yabloko’s Alexander Gudimov, were detained under various pretexts on that day. The rally was finally held a month later, in May.

The Candle for Tibet campaign was launched by David Califa, an Israeli citizen, in April, and has been coordinated via the website www.candle4tibet.org.

“The Dalai Lama says in his letter of support to our campaign that people in the free world take freedom for granted,” said Califa in a statement. “This is the essence of our campaign — making people stop and think about their freedom. We’d like people to think about what it means to them, to imagine how it feels to be deprived of it, and to have a say about it.”

Candles are planned to be lit at 9 p.m. in cities around the globe.