TAKE ACTION!

Please take part in our e-mail letter writing campaign, thanking President Obama for meeting the Dalai Lama and encouraging him to discuss ways in which the Tibetan situation can be improved.

White House image of the meeting on 18 February 2010

Click here for the White House online e-mail form, add your details into the boxes provided and copy and paste the letter below into the form.

If you receive a response from the White House, please forward it to us so that we can monitor the US government's reaction.


Dear Mr President,

I am delighted to hear that you met His Holiness the Dalai Lama on
February 18.

It is my sincere hope that your meeting with His Holiness
will mark an important step towards finding a lasting and just
settlement to China's decades long occupation of Tibet.

Your meeting with His Holiness is also timely: you will be aware that
envoys of the Dalai Lama recently travelled to Beijing at the invitation
of the Chinese government for the first time since November 2008 to
discuss the future of Tibet. But there was no sign that the Chinese
government had softened its hardline stance in the intervening period.
Following the visit of the envoys earlier this month, the lead Chinese
negotiator in the Sino-Tibetan Dialogue, Zhu Weiqun, briefed foreign
journalists that the two sides were "sharply divided" and there was no
possibility of the" slightest compromise" on the issue of sovereignty in
Tibet.

Since the Tibetan protests against Chinese rule that swept across the
Tibetan Plateau in 2008, China has only hardened its repression of the
Tibetan people. More than one thousand Tibetans detained in the
immediate aftermath of the protests remain unaccounted for by the
Chinese authorities two years later; two Tibetans were executed in Lhasa
last October for their alleged role in the 2008 protests, despite
well-founded concerns that the evidence used against them was unsound
and their convictions were therefore unsafe; and there remain severe
restrictions on the Tibetan people's basic rights to move and
communicate freely. One Tibetan, Wangdu, was sentenced to life
imprisonment in November 2008 on "espionage" charges after sending an
email about the situation inside Tibet to a contact outside Tibet.

I appeal to you therefore to follow up on your meeting with His Holiness
by taking concrete action to facilitate a substantive dialogue between
China and the Dalai Lama's envoys. Such a dialogue should be aimed at
delivering results and a positive outcome for the Tibetan people that
will be both just and lasting.

Sincerely,



Name

State

Zip

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/


You can also call or write to the President:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Please include your e-mail address

Phone Numbers

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461


Write to your Senator or local representative

If you are a US citizen, your local represenatives have an obligation to take notice of your communications with them. To find your local representative, please click on the links below and copy and paste the letter below into the e-forms provided at these links:

Contact your Senator
Contact your local representative
Contact your Governor

Dear (INSERT REPRESENTATIVE'S NAME HERE),

I am delighted to hear that President Obama met His Holiness the Dalai Lama on
February 18.

It is my sincere hope that this meeting with His Holiness
will mark an important step towards finding a lasting and just
settlement to China's decades long occupation of Tibet.

The meeting with His Holiness is also timely, and I hope that you will join
me in supporting the President's decision to meet with the Dalai Lama. You
will be aware that envoys of the Dalai Lama recently travelled to Beijing at
the invitation of the Chinese government for the first time since November
2008 to discuss the future of Tibet. But there was no sign that the Chinese
government had softened its hardline stance in the intervening period.
Following the visit of the envoys earlier this month, the lead Chinese
negotiator in the Sino-Tibetan Dialogue, Zhu Weiqun, briefed foreign
journalists that the two sides were "sharply divided" and there was no
possibility of the" slightest compromise" on the issue of sovereignty in
Tibet.

Since the Tibetan protests against Chinese rule that swept across the
Tibetan Plateau in 2008, China has only hardened its repression of the
Tibetan people. More than one thousand Tibetans detained in the
immediate aftermath of the protests remain unaccounted for by the
Chinese authorities two years later; two Tibetans were executed in Lhasa
last October for their alleged role in the 2008 protests, despite
well-founded concerns that the evidence used against them was unsound
and their convictions were therefore unsafe; and there remain severe
restrictions on the Tibetan people's basic rights to move and
communicate freely. One Tibetan, Wangdu, was sentenced to life
imprisonment in November 2008 on "espionage" charges after sending an
email about the situation inside Tibet to a contact outside Tibet.

I appeal to you therefore to encourage President Obama to follow up on this
meeting with His Holiness by taking concrete action to facilitate a substantive
dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama's envoys. Such a dialogue should
be aimed at delivering results and a positive outcome for the Tibetan people that
will be both just and lasting.

Sincerely,



Name

State

Zip