This petition is not meant for personal attack, character assassination or threat of any kind. We want to draw Chinese international students’ attention to the SCSU election, as well as calling for the awareness and protection of Chinese students’ own rights. We strongly disagree with Lhamo’s political statements and her participation in political campaigns that were clearly against Chinese history, Chinese laws and Chinese students’ rights.

This petition was intended to call attention to one of the candidates in the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus Student Union (SCSU) election this year. The candidate/now-president-elect Chemi Lhamo was found to hold the political belief that Tibet should be free from the People’s Republic of China, which is openly stated in her Instagram page, Instagram stories and posts. She also posted pictures that contained disrespectful and obscene hand gesture toward China, and pro-independence statements regarding Taiwan. On the other hand, several Chinese International students have been asked to support Lhamo without being informed about Lhamo’s political beliefs. It was reported that Lhamo approached Chinese student using mandarin, talked about her personal experience, and asked for their support in the election. Several Chinese students reported that they did vote for Lhamo as they would like to support a student leader from Tibet an autonomous region of China, which is obviously not what Lhamo believed herself.

As Chinese students, we firmly believe the One-China policy and China’s sovereignty, as most governments in the world recognized (wikipedia) and would not tolerate any attempt to impinge upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. According to the Anti-Secession Law (Adopted at the Third Session of the Tenth National People’s Congress on March 14, 2005), “Safeguarding China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is the common obligation of all Chinese people”.

Therefore, it is our obligation to protest against Lhamo’s political beliefs and question the votes Lhamo had received as the Chinese students were not aware of Lhamo’s political stance when being approached and asked to vote for her. We Chinese students feel deeply offended and hurt by Lhamo’s disprespectful social media posts on China and her campaigning strategy targeting Chinese international students.

At the same time, Chinese students are expected to protest in a polite, proper, respectful, and rational way. Any cyberbullying behaviors including threatening, verbal abusing, publicizing or distributing private information, using fake accounts are NOT LEGAL and definitely NOT encouraged. Please think before you act. Your words and behaviors greatly influence on how others think about Chinese international students as a whole. Thank you for your time.