The show was kicked off at 7 p.m. at the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall, with bands comprised of young people rapping and singing songs highlighting their concerns for Tibet and love for Taiwan.

Performers are scheduled to continue the concert until Friday night.

During song breaks, some of the band members called on the audience to donate to Tibetans, and lambasted Beijing for building the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to tighten its control over Tibetans.

Also present at the show was a performing group of some 15 Taiwan-based Tibetans who cried out slogans, such as “Long Live the Dalai Lama, “ “Free Tibet, “ “Independence for Tibet, “ “Independence for Taiwan,” “Tibet, go!” and “Taiwan, go!”

The group later held a two-minute silence to mourn Tibetans killed by Chinese troops in the uprising this month, the worst in Tibet since the late 1980s.

Beijing said 16 people were killed by rioters in Lhasa, while the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, estimated that at least 99 people have died in the crackdown by Chinese troops.

Holding banners saying “China stop killing Tibetans” and “Boycott 2008 Olympics in China, “ the performance group in Taipei also sang Tibet’s national anthem and a special song to encourage their fellow Tibetans to stick to their dream of a Tibet free from oppression.

Some 600 people were estimated to have turned out at the show by 10 p.m. Thursday.

At a press conference earlier Thursday, Lee Ming-tsung, a spokesman for the event and a sociology professor at National Taiwan University, urged local citizens to unanimously back Tibet regardless of their political party affiliations.

China’s crackdown on Tibetan protesters has become an issue in the run up to Taiwan’s hotly contested presidential poll slated for Saturday.

Jam Ja, an exiled Tibetan in Taiwan, expressed worries at the press conference about his relatives’ safety in Tibet. Many Tibetans are afraid to call their families back home for fear their phones might be tapped.

“China is fighting against Tibet on a war scale, “ he said with tears in his eyes before kneeling down at the press conference to call for public help.

“I feel really sad whenever I think of my relatives and family members who are now suffering suppression in Tibet, “ he said, vowing not to give up his ideals for freedom and democracy.

At the press conference, Yao Jen-to, an assistant professor of sociology at National Tsinghua University, said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) arrested 65 Tibetans on political suspicion and jailed 119 Tibetans as political prisoners in 2007, citing an annual report on Tibet’s human rights released by the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

“This shows that the CCP has a very serious control over Tibet, “ Yao noted.

Yao said that China should be condemned for repeatedly violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that people should be free from fear.

Meanwhile, Yao criticized Taiwanese popular music singers for not taking a stand against China’s human rights violations.

He said that some celebrities are popular in China and dare not voice their support for Tibetans because they do not want to lose the Chinese market.

Yao urged the Taiwanese celebrities to speak out on the issue and throw their backing behind Tibet.

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