Letter: Tibet's agony

Sir: Angela Lewis ("Whose freedom is it anyway?", 13 November) attacks the integrity of film and pop stars who support the Tibet movement. Her disdain should not extend to the justification for that support.

Does she need reminding that more than a million Tibetans have died and over 6,000 monasteries been destroyed since the Chinese invasion in 1950 (the events of which are dramatised in Seven Years in Tibet). Or that the current regime continues to repress and imprison those who speak out against the occupation - such as Ngawang Sangdrol, a 20-year-old nun serving an 18-year jail sentence for singing nationalist songs and shouting "Free Tibet!"

If there is a risk that the freeing of Tibet will, as Angela Lewis hypothesises, lead to the outbreak of World War III, then perhaps we had all better turn a blind eye and leave Ngawang Sangdrol and hundreds more political prisoners, including the eight-year-old Panchen Lama, to rot in jail.

ALISON REYNOLDS

Director, Free Tibet Campaign

PATRICK NASH

Director, Tibet Society

London N1