SFT Media Contacts/Spokespersons
All contacts may be reached via phone or email:
+1 917 289 0219 | sftmedia@studentsforafreetibet.org
Click here to learn more about Students for a Free Tibet and the Olympics campaign
A 32-year old Tibetan woman born and raised in Canada, Lhadon Tethong is one of the most recognizable faces in the Tibet movement. She has traveled the world to build a powerful youth movement for Tibet, training and inspiring young people to become committed activists for human rights and social justice. She has spoken to countless groups big and small about the situation in Tibet – from a class of elementary schoolchildren to a crowd of 66,000 at the 1998 Tibetan Freedom Concert in Washington, D.C. She first became involved with Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) in 1996, when she founded a chapter at University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lhadon was a leading force in scoring an unprecedented campaign victory in 2000, when a coalition of Tibet supporters and environmental and human rights activists prevented a World Bank project that would have underwritten the resettlement of tens of thousands of Chinese settlers in Tibet. Since then, she has become a leading figure in the movement for Tibetan independence. In August 2007, in the week preceding the one-year countdown to the Beijing Olympics, Lhadon traveled to Beijing where she launched a blog called ‘Beijing Wide Open’ to report on the Olympic preparations and China’s political usage of the Games to legitimize the occupation of Tibet. Her reporting received instant worldwide attention as she openly traveled around the capital, speaking to journalists from Tiananmen Square, and representing SFT activists who hung a protest banner on the Great Wall of China on the eve of the one-year countdown. She was detained the following day and deported from Beijing. Lhadon serves as co-chair of the Olympics Campaign Working Group of the International Tibet Support Network. She has worked for SFT since March 1999, and currently serves as the Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet International.
Lhadon in the media:
CBC News profile of Lhadon
Blog boingboing.net on Lhadon’s reporting from Beijing on one-year countdown to Olympics
Lhadon on The Hour with George Stroumboulpoulos
CTV report on SFT use of technology with Lhadon
A 28-year old Tibetan man born and raised in Dharamsala, India, Tenzin Dorjee (”Tendor”) graduated at the top of his class from upper Tibetan Children’s Village school. He attended Brown University where he was President of his Students for a Free Tibet chapter. A published writer of essays and short stories, Tendor won International Campaign for Tibet’s Light of Truth Essay Contest in 2002. Tendor served on SFT’s Board of Directors from 2003 until resigning to apply for an SFT staff position. He became Grassroots Coordinator for SFT International in November 2004 and now serves as the Deputy Director. In April 2007, he was the only Tibetan member of a team of activists who unfurled a banner at the base camp of Mount Everest to protest China’s plans to summit everest with the Olympic torch. The action took place on the day China unveiled its proposed international torch relay route and preempted China’s trial run of the torch to the Everest summit. The action made worldwide headlines and Tendor is believed to be the first Tibetan exile to return to Tibet to stage a demonstration. He is a frequent spokesperson for the Tibetan youth movement, in both Tibetan and English language media. In addition to his activism, he is a musician, accomplished in both Tibetan and western folk music.
Tendor in the media:
March 2008 NDTV interview with Tendor about Tibet situation
CNN video of Tendor being arrested in Olympia, Greece during Olympic torch relay kickoff
Video of April 2007 protest at Mt. Everest base camp
Australia Broadcasting Company radio interview with Tendor about Everest protest
After traveling to Tibet and China in 1999, Kate, 27, joined a Students for a Free Tibet chapter at the University of British Columbia. In 2001, she was part of an action team that grabbed headlines across Canada after staging a protest in Beijing during a Canadian government sponsored ‘Team Canada’ trade mission to China. After earning a Political Science degree with Honors, Kate served as a member of the inaugural Board of Directors for Students for a Free Tibet Canada. Before becoming SFT Canada’s first National Coordinator in April 2005, she worked for the Canadian Federation of Students and Rainforest Action Network. Kate attributes her leadership and campaign skills to SFT’s Youth Leadership Training Program, in which she has participated as a student, volunteer, trainer, and coordinator. She became SFT’s Campaigns Director since the fall of 2005 and has served as a media coordinator and spokesperson for many of SFT’s high-profile actions from Mt. Everest to Beijing to the recent torch relay protests against China’s crackdown in Tibet. In April, Kate was detained and deported from Hong Kong along with SFT Canada’s National Director Tsering Lama two days before the arrival of the Olympic torch.
Kate in the media:
Globe and Mail profile of “three Canadians [who] upstaged Beijing”
Canada AM report on Kate’s deportation from Hong Kong
Story about 2001 Tibet protest during Canada’s trade mission to China
Han Shan, 35, first worked with Students for a Free Tibet as a nonviolent direct action trainer at the 1998 Human Rights Action Camp outside of Washington DC. After the camp, along with another SFT activist, he hung a 600-square foot banner across from the Chinese Embassy (”Clinton & Jiang: Free Tibet Before Free Trade”) that landed on the front page of the Washington Times the day before President Clinton made his historic trip to China. After serving as the WTO Action Coordinator in the lead-up to the historic demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, he became the Program Director for the Ruckus Society, an Oakland-based activist training organization. A Direct Action Coordinator and Action Climber, Han was called “one of the most visible figures of the protests against the WTO, World Bank and IMF” by the Washington Post. He is co-founder of Students for a Free Tibet’s annual Free Tibet! Action Camp and served on SFT’s Board of Directors for three years before joining staff as Development Director in 2003. In 2004, on the morning after the close of the Athens Olympics and the handover of the Olympic flag to the Beijing mayor, Han represented SFT at the first-ever press conference of Tibet activists in Beijing. Later the same day, he was arrested along with a colleague for unfurling a banner reading “No Olympics for China Until Tibet is Free” in front of the Beijing Olympic park. In addition to his activism for Tibet, he is a producer with Rikshaw Films, an independent documentary film production company. He currently serves as SFT’s Olympics Campaign Coordinator.
Han in the media:
Han Shan speaking on March 10th – the day the recent Tibetan uprising began – from New York’s Union Square
Reuters report on protest during IOC meeting in Athens
BBC interview with Han about documentary film The Listening Project