Despite the rainy day on December 20, the San Francisco Regional Tibetan Youth Congress held a demonstration in front of the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco over illegal gold-mining operations in Sershul, Eastern Tibet, and the subsequent arrests of more than 80 innocent Tibetans in the region. According to reports, the gold-mining operations were being undertaken in Serkhok, a traditional grazing site in the region. The Serkhok Valley is known in Tibetan as “Gold Valley.”

The organizers are calling for the immediate halt to the gold-mining operations, the immediate release of Tibetan protesters, and an end to environmental destruction. According to the International Campaign for Tibet, based in Washington, D.C., “The developments in Kashi represent the intersection of environmental disputes, restrictions on traditional economic livelihoods, cultural suppression, and systematic human rights violations. The pattern of mining-related conflicts, combined with long-standing restrictions on Tibetan religious, cultural, and economic practices, reflects broader documented trends across Tibetan regions in recent decades.”

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