Contacts: 
Pat Suhrcke, Director
(617) 495-2727  
email: Public Events@cambridgeforum.org                            
Press Release
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FREE and Open to the Public

TIBET: Lens on Human Rights in China

WEDNESDAY, March 26, 2008 at 7:30 pm

Calm has returned to Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, after last week’s violent protests and their violent suppression. How did the initially peaceful demonstrations of Buddhist monks turn into a public uprising? What does the Chinese government’s military crackdown to suppress the demonstrations mean for the future? What is the role of the Dalai Lama in the current unrest? Why is this violence erupting now?

"There are two schools of thought," says Lobsang Sangay, a Senior Fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, who has been following current events in Tibet closely. "One says you can never trust the Chinese government because they will never negotiate peacefully, and so confrontation is the best approach. The one led by the Dalai Lama says dialogue is the best approach." Dr. Sangay brings up-to-the-minute analysis of the Tibetan situation in the larger context of international law and human rights at Cambridge Forum on Wednesday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. Dr. Michael Grodin, co-director of the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights, moderates the public discussion.

Lobsang Sangay is the first Tibetan to earn a doctoral degree from Harvard Law Schoo. He accomplished this in 2004, focusing his dissertation research on “Democracy in Distress: Is Exile Polity a Remedy? A Case Study of Tibet’s Government-in-Exile.” While at Harvard he organized 5 unprecedented conference between Chinese and Tibetan scholars, including a rare meeting between the Dalai Lama and 35 mainland Chinese scholars in 2003. Currently a Senior Fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program of Harvard Law School, Dr. Sangay is a regular consultant on Tibetan issues for major news media, including the BBC, the Washington Post, Boston Globe and TIME magazine. 
Cambridge Forums are free and open to the public. Book signing will follow 
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