Darkschunt 
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
I'm SOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!
Guess what! Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's life has been saved!!!!!
If you haven't been reading my earlier posts, Tenzin Delek is a Tibetan monk who was arrested by the Chinese government in 2002 and accused of being involved in certain bombings. He was sentenced to death with a suspension of two years without being given a fair trial nor with any credible evidence.
This next part I'll quote from the Students for a Free Tibet website:
"According to Human Rights Watch, 'For more than 10 years, Tenzin Delek struggled to develop social, medical, educational and religious institutions for the impoverished nomadic Tibetan communities in Sichuan province. He also worked to preserve the area’s fragile ecological balance in the face of unbridled logging and mining activities.' Rinpoche was also an advocate of the Dalai Lama's philosophy of nonviolence.
"Because of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's influence in his community, and his efforts to preserve Tibetan identity, the Chinese authorities view him as a threat to their control in the region. Over the course of a decade, he was the target of increasing harassment, intimidation, and control by Chinese officials."
Tenzin Delek was sentenced to death with a two year suspension. His death sentence was supposed to have been carried out on Dec 2nd 2004. There has been an international campaign going on to try to save his life, and the Students for A free Tibet association have been campaigning as well and that's how I found out about it and I tried to get up a petition as well because, basically, that was the only thing I could do by my cashless self.
And the campaign worked! On Dec 2nd, the day his death sentence was supposed to be carried out, he was granted a reprieve, and then, on January 26th, his death sentence was commuted and reduced to life imprisonment!
Hooray!
A while back, while I was trying to get (okay, harassing :) ) people to sign the petition to save his life, I get a lot of hassle from certain people who asked me: "What use do you think this petition is? Do you really think that it can change anything? It's just a petition, no one's going to listen to you. It won't changed anything."
Well, my dear friends, HAH! It has CHANGED things! (and thank you for signing the petition, see, you HAVE made a difference! And what a difference - saving an innocent man's life!
You know, even if you don't think it would make a difference, you HAVE to try. I mean, this is an innocent man's life we're talking about. Just think about how you would feel if you were stuck in a lonely old jail cell, slowly watching the days slip by before the day of your death setence, knowing you were going to die, and not knowing if anyone outside was trying to help you, and knowing you were innocent.
I feel SO excited and happy about this! You know, deep down in my heart, I thought the petition wouldn't work either. I had my serious doubts that it could really change things, but I thought, hell, it wouldn't hurt to try, right? I mean, you just HAD to keep trying. I kept thinking about how it must feel to be alone in that jail cell, even if you thought things wouldn't change, you would want people outside to keep trying no matter what, right?
And things did change! His life was saved. It felt so good to read about this!
A couple of nights ago, I was feeling depressed, like suddenly, something struck me that this world was just shit, you know, no matter what we do, there's always people hurting other people, and worse, WE hurt other people as well, even if we don't mean to. It doesn't matter, even if you were a saint, you inevitably ended up hurting some one else sometime in your life, intentional or not. And I just felt so depressed over that, like, the world IS a terrible place, and there's no help for it.
But this has made me feel a thousand times better! If something like this can happen, then, well, there truly is hope! No matter that other people hurt other people, that YOU end up hurting other people whether you want to or not, you gotta keep up your pluck and keep on trying to change things for the better, right?
I'm so, so, so happy.
And now, there's a campaign going on to try to free Tenzin Delek as well as other political prisoners in Tibet. If you're interested in finding out more about it, go to http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?list=type&type=35, which is the Students for a Free Tibet website. Who knows, we might get him freed next!
Speaking of all things Tibetan, it was the Tibetan New Year on Febraury 9! Losar Tashi Delek! According to the Tibetan calender, it is the year 2132, the year of the Wood Bird.
Guess what! Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's life has been saved!!!!!
If you haven't been reading my earlier posts, Tenzin Delek is a Tibetan monk who was arrested by the Chinese government in 2002 and accused of being involved in certain bombings. He was sentenced to death with a suspension of two years without being given a fair trial nor with any credible evidence.
This next part I'll quote from the Students for a Free Tibet website:
"According to Human Rights Watch, 'For more than 10 years, Tenzin Delek struggled to develop social, medical, educational and religious institutions for the impoverished nomadic Tibetan communities in Sichuan province. He also worked to preserve the area’s fragile ecological balance in the face of unbridled logging and mining activities.' Rinpoche was also an advocate of the Dalai Lama's philosophy of nonviolence.
"Because of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's influence in his community, and his efforts to preserve Tibetan identity, the Chinese authorities view him as a threat to their control in the region. Over the course of a decade, he was the target of increasing harassment, intimidation, and control by Chinese officials."
Tenzin Delek was sentenced to death with a two year suspension. His death sentence was supposed to have been carried out on Dec 2nd 2004. There has been an international campaign going on to try to save his life, and the Students for A free Tibet association have been campaigning as well and that's how I found out about it and I tried to get up a petition as well because, basically, that was the only thing I could do by my cashless self.
And the campaign worked! On Dec 2nd, the day his death sentence was supposed to be carried out, he was granted a reprieve, and then, on January 26th, his death sentence was commuted and reduced to life imprisonment!
Hooray!
A while back, while I was trying to get (okay, harassing :) ) people to sign the petition to save his life, I get a lot of hassle from certain people who asked me: "What use do you think this petition is? Do you really think that it can change anything? It's just a petition, no one's going to listen to you. It won't changed anything."
Well, my dear friends, HAH! It has CHANGED things! (and thank you for signing the petition, see, you HAVE made a difference! And what a difference - saving an innocent man's life!
You know, even if you don't think it would make a difference, you HAVE to try. I mean, this is an innocent man's life we're talking about. Just think about how you would feel if you were stuck in a lonely old jail cell, slowly watching the days slip by before the day of your death setence, knowing you were going to die, and not knowing if anyone outside was trying to help you, and knowing you were innocent.
I feel SO excited and happy about this! You know, deep down in my heart, I thought the petition wouldn't work either. I had my serious doubts that it could really change things, but I thought, hell, it wouldn't hurt to try, right? I mean, you just HAD to keep trying. I kept thinking about how it must feel to be alone in that jail cell, even if you thought things wouldn't change, you would want people outside to keep trying no matter what, right?
And things did change! His life was saved. It felt so good to read about this!
A couple of nights ago, I was feeling depressed, like suddenly, something struck me that this world was just shit, you know, no matter what we do, there's always people hurting other people, and worse, WE hurt other people as well, even if we don't mean to. It doesn't matter, even if you were a saint, you inevitably ended up hurting some one else sometime in your life, intentional or not. And I just felt so depressed over that, like, the world IS a terrible place, and there's no help for it.
But this has made me feel a thousand times better! If something like this can happen, then, well, there truly is hope! No matter that other people hurt other people, that YOU end up hurting other people whether you want to or not, you gotta keep up your pluck and keep on trying to change things for the better, right?
I'm so, so, so happy.
And now, there's a campaign going on to try to free Tenzin Delek as well as other political prisoners in Tibet. If you're interested in finding out more about it, go to http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/article.php?list=type&type=35, which is the Students for a Free Tibet website. Who knows, we might get him freed next!
Speaking of all things Tibetan, it was the Tibetan New Year on Febraury 9! Losar Tashi Delek! According to the Tibetan calender, it is the year 2132, the year of the Wood Bird.
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