Beijing: Press Conference - Aug. 22, 2008
Beijing – Two members of Students for a Free Tibet held an open-air press conference in Beijing today at 2:35 pm outside the Jianguomenwai diplomatic compound.
Briton Alice Speller, 25, former National Coordinator of SFT-UK, and American Ginger Cassady, 30, an SFT activist from the San Francisco Bay Area, spoke for ten minutes and answered questions from journalists. The press conference capped two and a half weeks of protests by Tibetans and their supporters in Beijing and a seven-year global campaign since Beijing’s Olympic bid to make China’s ongoing and brutal occupation of Tibet a critical issue for the current and future Chinese leadership.
With two more days left to go of the Olympic Games, the two declared the protest campaign in Beijing a success and spoke of the resolve of Tibetans and Tibet supporters globally to continue to press the Chinese leadership for meaningful change. “[Students for a Free Tibet has] organized eight nonviolent direct actions here while we’ve been in China, successfully – we call it our lucky eight,” said Ginger Cassady, a volunteer activist with Students for a Free Tibet in the San Francisco Bay area.
There is a raw audio recording via mobile phone - it is unfortunately low-quality but the activists’ statements can be made out clearly.
Click here to listen to the audio as a quicktime file. Click here to download.
Click here to listen to the audio as a wav file. Click here to download.
Click here to listen to the audio as an mp3 file. Click here to download.
Bios of the Students for a Free Tibet spokeswomen:
Alice Speller was born in London and moved to the village of Ashdon when she was nine. She attended Herts and Essex High School in Bishops Stortford and Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge. Before going to University, she served as an English teacher in India (near Kalimpong) and then traveled in Asia. During that time, she traveled overland from Nepal to central Tibet, later spending time in Kham and Amdo in eastern Tibet. She has also spent time in China. She was first exposed to Tibet through her parents and grew up attending marches and joining efforts supporting Tibet.
At Sussex University in Brighton, while studying Social Anthropology with Development Studies, Alice helped establish the Students for a Free Tibet National Network in the UK, and has served as a board member from SFT-UK’s founding. Alice worked at Free Tibet Campaign first as office manager and then as finance manager. She joined Tibet Society as its campaigns officer, doing double duties as a manager for its charity, Tibet Relief Fund. She has spent many holidays working with SFT India in Dharamsala.
Alice is currently pursuing a law degree and will begin her LPC (law society exams) in September.
Ginger Cassady has worked on national and international human rights and environmental issues for the past twelve years. She has a degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado in Boulder. During this time she directed the Wilderness Study Group and was the state delegate for the National Forest Protection Alliance focusing on national forest legislation and management in the United States.
Ginger is also a volunteer activist with Students for a Free Tibet and has used her background in campaign strategy and environmental organizing to support the efforts of SFT and the Bay Area Tibetan community. When she’s not working, Ginger enjoys kayaking around her houseboat in Sausalito.
