As the Dalai Lama celebrates his birthday, @NDI‘s Asia team examines the future of the #Tibetan cause & its enduring commitment to #democracy 👇https://t.co/pfZQt1cEX8
— National Democratic Institute (@NDI) July 8, 2020
The State Department said on Tuesday that it was barring Chinese authorities from the United States who were found to have restricted journalists, tourists, or diplomats or other American officials from entering Tibetan areas. The new visa restrictions are the latest set of sanctions that the Trump administration has imposed against China’s government and political leaders over the last several years, most recently to punish Beijing’s crackdown against protesters in Hong Kong, The Times reports.
Hong Kong is heading toward the same fate as Tibet after China imposed a new security law that criminalises calls for independence, the leader of the exiled Tibetan government has told AFP:
Lobsang Sangay said China was deceiving Hong Kong the same way it cheated Tibetan people in 1951 when it promised autonomy…. Sangay said that similar security laws were imposed on Tibet to crush independent voices which led to the 1959 Tibetan uprising against the Chinese rule after which The Dalai Lama fled to India. Saying that people in Hong Kong were pursuing basic human rights and democracy, he said what is happening right now in Hong Kong has already taken place in Tibet.
The Dalai Lama is the youngest 85-year old in the world, said National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman (right). He has said that he is “half Buddhist Monk, half scientist,” meaning that he has tried to understand the human mind in order to awaken our capacity for social, emotional, and ethical learning. By transforming exile and suffering into hope and love, he has demonstrated for the world the benefit of this method of learning, he said in comments on the occasion of the Dalai Lama’s 85th birthday.
The Dalai Lama made a bid for music chart stardom on his 85th birthday, July 6, by releasing “Inner World,” an album with 42 minutes of mantras and chants set to soothing music, PRI adds. The 11-song record kicks off with the track “One Of My Favourite Prayers” and continues with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader reciting meditations to titles such as “Compassion,” “Courage,” “Healing” and “Wisdom.”
