Kasur Gyalo Dhondup to raise the cause of the hunger strikers to the Chinese Government: Day 24

In a surprise visit this morning, Kasur Gyalo Thondup, elder brother of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, paid a visit to the hunger strikers. While expressing his deep concern for their health, he requested them to end the fast, and assured them that he will raise the cause of the TYC-led hunger strike tomorrow to the Chinese Government, through the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi.

Later in the evening, two members of Indian Parliament visited the hunger strikers. Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan, Member of Parliament, Lower House, and National President of Bharatya Janata Yuva Manch, youth wing of BJP, and Mr. Brajbhushra Tiwari, Member of Parliament, Upper House, came to express their solidarity and support. Mr. Tiwari said, "I admire the courage and determination of the fourteen hunger strikers. As, the Tibetan youths takes the reins of the Tibetan struggle, I am optimistic that Chinese government will be forced to listen to the demands of the Tibetan people. I wish you all the best."

Hundreds protest in Tibet over jailed Tibetan monk

WASHINGTON, July 31: Hundreds of Tibetans staged a protest earlier this month in support of jailed monk Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, sources in the Kham region of China's Sichuan province said.

“On July 23 several hundred local women and youngsters from the nomadic community of Nyachukha county under Karze (in Chinese, Ganzi) prefecture set up a human blockade on the main highways in the area," a caller from Kham told RFA's Tibetan service. "They demanded that Tenzin Delek be released since he was innocent."

"They also responded in unison that Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was wrongly convicted and he is innocent. The two ladies also asked the rally whether they believed in what the Chinese officials alleged about the storage of explosives in trenches in the compound of Nalanda Monastery of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's Nalanda monastery. All shouted that it was wrong," the caller said.

The Sichuan Provincial People’s High Court sentenced Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, in his 50s, to life imprisonment on Jan. 26, 2005, after a prolonged international campaign to prevent his execution for an alleged bomb plot in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu.

In Jan. 2003, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche made an audiotape that was smuggled out of prison to RFA’s Tibetan service, in which he reiterated his claims of innocence.

Another man, Lobsang Dhondup, was sentenced to death in the same case and executed on Jan. 26, 2003.