The 1th International Forum for the freedom of Tibet in Turin

Fifty delegates coming from Europe, Asia and North America met in the Congress Centre “Torino Incontra” for the 1th International Forum for the Freedom of Tibet, organized by ISCOS-CISL with the collaboration of the Tibet Culture House and the French associations “Tibet Destination Rangzen” and “Alternative Tibetaine”.
Even some very important exponents of the Chinese dissidence like Wei Jingsheng, winner of the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament, took part at the meeting, to search a common strategy for a non violent struggle to assert democracy in China.
Some representatives of the institutions of Piedmont, as the member of Regional Council Giampiero Leo, coordinator of the “Associazione dei Comuni, Province e Regioni per il Tibet”, and some members of Italian Parliament, were invited and took part in the debate.
Harry Wu (Laogai Research Foundation) e Larry Gerstein (International Tibet Indipendence Movement), unable to be present, sent their notes to the Presidency of the Forum.
Monks and laymen met in Turin not only to reassert the right of Tibetan people to the self determination, but even to plan a new and more effective kind of relationship between the political and social opposition in the occupied territories.
The meeting, started with a speech of Claudio Tecchio, of the “Campagna di Solidarietà con il Popolo Tibetano”, continued with the speeches of all the most authoritative members of the Tibetan diaspora, as Jamyang Norbu, president of Rangzen Alliance and Dhundup Namgyal Khorko, representative of the associations of the ex partisans of Eastern Tibet.
Mario Scotti, General Secretary of the CISL of the Piedmont, stressed the importance of the counter-information to try to mobilize the international community and he supported the subscription for a Popular Petition to ask the Italian Government to promote a motion against China to the Security Council of the U.N.
At the end of the meeting a document was approved laying the foundations of an international network that make more incisive the action of who is fighting for the Tibetan independence and for the independence of all the countries illegally occupied by China.
Besides the document emphasizes the commitment to found a free Trade Union that makes it possible for the Tibetan workers to oppose the current deportations and to lay the foundations of a social opposition opposing to the antidemocratic government imposed by the occupants.
The Forum, organized with the sponsorship of the “Compagnia di San Paolo” and the patronage of the Piedmont Region, was taken with particular attention by some international media as Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, that broadcasted live the most important moments of the debate.