tibet
Posted by KatrinVerclas on Apr 10, 2008
An early-morning group text message from SFTorch on txtmarks.com by protest organizers in San Francisco read: "Good morning, what a beautiful day! Default meeting place is Ferry Park, 8 am." Throughout the day, text messages to more than 1,300 people were disseminated by protesters, using Txtmark, a free group messaging system. Thousands of Tibetan exiles and supporters protested the Olympic torch relay throughout the day, forcing the torch route to be changed a number of times.
The Twitter group SFTorch was much smaller with some 200 followers by mid-day and used to report up-to date messages to audiences both in San Francisco and elsewhere. The security prompted messages on Twitter such as this one: "I have never ever seen this much security for an inanimate object" and ""It ain't coming here." --Guy behind me "It's going up and down Van Ness, and nobody is there to see it." --Girl beside me."
Posted by KatrinVerclas on Mar 16, 2008
Pictures and video out of Lhasa and Xiahe are slowly emerging, yet again initially mainly taken with camera phones and transmitted clandestinely across the border to transmit to a global audience.
According to reports, mobile networks and Internet access have been restricted for the last few days. Anti-Chinese protests led by Buddhist monks spread to other cities after a violent crackdown by Chinese troups on Friday that may have left as many as 100 protesters dead. Protests began peacefully last Monday but turned violent yesterday. Human Rights Watch alleged Chinese security forces "beating protesters, firing live ammunition and surrounding the Ganden Drepung and Sera monasteries."
Tibet has been occupied by China since 1950.
Update: From Chinese Twitter clones, comments about Tibet.
Images courtesy of Tibetan Center for Human Rights
