Last week, Free Tibet delivered much-needed Tibetan language courses in London in the sweltering heat. The organizers were joined by Honorable Friends of the British Parliament, MP Navendu Mishra and MP Tim Loughton, who reinforced calls for China to end its colonial boarding school policy in occupied Tibet.

Free Tibet: ‘Why are we turning central London into a classroom for Tibetans? Last weekend, world leaders gathered at the G20 Summit in Delhi, which featured representatives of the UK and China. This is an important opportunity to address the Tibetan issue, and in particular China’s colonial boarding school system.

Future generations of Tibetans risk losing their language, identity and heritage because of these policies. We came to Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square to draw urgent attention to this appalling policy and call on the UK Government to address this directly to those responsible.

Our campaign provides Londoners with a unique opportunity to learn Tibetan, a language rich in culture and history. It is one of the few languages ​​with an original script that is more than a thousand years old. This language has come under fire. Tibetan children are not given the opportunity to learn the language freely and Tibetan teachers are punished for teaching a language that has been preserved for centuries. We will not allow the Tibetan language to be marginalized from history. We will continue to fight for the rights of Tibetan children to learn their unique language, culture and history.

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the Tibetan community in the UK, whose members and young people have not been deterred by the extreme weather in teaching Tibetan, taking to the streets to hand out leaflets and engaging in dialogue with the community and explaining why. Chinese colonial boarding schools are dangerous for future generations of Tibetan people.’

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