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As Tibetan hunger strikers moved into their sixteenth day in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York, a small group of Bay Area residents turned out Saturday in downtown Berkeley to show their support by staging their own one-day strike. 

Resting under a canopy set up at the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street, some 25 protesters meditated, prayed and chanted. 

The strikers’ demands include China’s release of several high-ranking religious leaders—including one that is set to be executed—as well as an independent investigation into the abuse of human rights by the Chinese government in Tibet.  

The three hunger strikers in New York said they are prepared to stay in front of the U.N. building until these concessions are met. In the meantime, solidarity actions such as the one in Berkeley have popped up around the country. 

“Our ultimate aspiration is the end of the Chinese occupation of Tibet,” said Topden Tsering, president of the San Francisco Tibetan Youth Congress, the organization that organized the strike. “But right now they are outside the U.N. with very practical demands.” 

One of the religious leaders currently held by China is Ghedun Choekyi Nyima, the eleventh Panchen Lama and the second highest leader of Tibet. Nyima has been jailed since 1995, when he was captured at age of six. The other prisoner, Tulku Tenzin Delek, a Tibetan lama, was arrested and sentenced to death for refusing to renounce allegiance to the Dali Lama, according to Tsering. Both figures, said Tsering, were arrested because they were seen as a threat to Chinese power in Tibet. 

Tibet has been under Chinese occupation since 1959 and has garnered a broad base of support here in the United States. Yet according to Tsering, China’s influence in the world market has kept anyone, including the United States, from making any definitive moves to demand the end of the occupation. 

The protests here in Berkeley and in New York, as a result, are part of a new wave on non-violent resistance by Tibetans, said Tsering. In 1997, Tibetan Youth Congress hunger strikers in Delhi, India, held out for 59 days until they were forcibly removed by the Indian police. During that struggle, a young Tibetan man dowsed himself with gasoline and set himself on fire to redraw attention to the struggle. 

“We are letting the free world know that even though you have business to do with China, we should also have the freedom to have our culture, and our freedom,” said Dhonyo Tenzin, a Berkeley resident who was originally born in Tibet. 

“The U.S. should not just look for incentives like oil to support people,” said Tsering. 

Tsering said a strong Tibetan community has developed in the diaspora and he hopes support will continue to grow.  

“Even after more than 40 years we have not forgotten our culture,” he said. “We can go back to a free Tibet and we will.”