Tibetan National Uprising Day – 10th March

After the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) set its sights on the resource-rich and strategically valuable neighbouring country of Tibet. From 1950 onwards, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began its invasion, gradually occupying Tibet. With 40,000 troops stationed inside the country, the Tibetan government was coerced into signing the so-called “Seventeen Point Agreement”. Tibetans did not welcome this occupation. Across Tibet, people resisted the armed takeover, and China responded with systematic violence and repression.

This resistance reached its defining moment on 10 March 1959, when an estimated 300,000 Tibetans surrounded the Potala Palace in Lhasa to protect the Dalai Lama from what they feared was an imminent threat to his life. This extraordinary act of collective courage is remembered today as Tibetan National Uprising Day.

Since the invasion, Tibet has endured decades of brutal rule. Under Mao Zedong, thousands of monasteries were destroyed and more than one million Tibetans lost their lives. Repression continues today through torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and the ongoing denial of fundamental human rights, religious freedom, and cultural expression.

On 10 March 1959, after nearly a decade of military occupation and relentless oppression, Tibetans rose up in their thousands, filling the streets of Lhasa in peaceful protest. Their call for freedom was met with overwhelming force. The Chinese army launched a brutal crackdown in Lhasa and across Tibet, killing tens of thousands of Tibetans.

In the aftermath, the Dalai Lama was forced to flee into exile, where he remains to this day, while Tibetans inside Tibet continue to live under heavy surveillance and repression.

Every year on 10 March, Tibetans and supporters around the world come together to honour the courage of those who stood up in 1959 and to reaffirm the ongoing struggle for freedom, justice, and human rights in Tibet.

Tibetan National Uprising Day Protests in Australia