Asia-Pacific News

Free Tibet activists detained after protest at Great Wall (Roundup)

Aug 7, 2007, 10:47 GMT

Beijing - Chinese police detained six Tibetan independence activists on Tuesday after they hung a giant banner promoting their cause on the Great Wall near Beijing, groups representing the activists said. Photographs and a video showed the six activists hanging a 42-square-metre banner bearing the message 'One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008' in English and Chinese. The stunt was a protest against China 'attempting to use the 2008 Games as a tool to legitimize its illegal occupation of Tibet,' the Free Tibet Campaign and Students for a Free Tibet said in a statement issued from Hong Kong. The six activists were residents of the United States, Canada and Britain, the groups said. In a separate action, Lhadon Tethong, executive director of New Yoerk-based Students for Free Tibet, said she had requested a meeting with International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge, who was in Beijing for celebrations marking the one-year countdown to the start of the 2008 Olympics. 'We demand that the Chinese government not pass the Olympic torch over Tibetan soil, and that the opening and closing ceremonies contain no references to Tibet: its land, its culture or its people,' Lhadon said in an open letter to Rogge. 'We are calling on the IOC to publicly oppose these propaganda efforts, and use its influence to affect substantive progress on human rights in China and a meaningful resolution to the occupation of Tibet,' she said. Tenzin Dorjee, deputy director of Students for a Free Tibet, said in the statement that China was 'exploiting the Olympics to gain acceptance as a world leader.' 'By protesting at the Great Wall, the most recognizable symbol of Chinese nationhood, we're sending a clear message that China's dream of international leadership cannot be realized as long as it continues its brutal occupation of Tibet,' Tenzin Dorjee said. The protest was also directed at the IOC for 'failing to fulfil its commitment to hold the Chinese government accountable with regards to its human rights record,' the statement said. Matt Whitticase of the London-based Free Tibet Campaign said there had been 'hardening of China's position in Tibet' and a 'closing off of Tibet to journalists and media scrutiny' since 2001, when Beijing won the right to host the Olympics. Despite the controls on travel to Tibet, Lhadon Tethong urged foreign reporters to visit the disputed region. Foreign journalists in Tibet 'need to see the thinly veiled reality that exists there' by trying to find out as much as possible independently of their Chinese government chaperones, she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in Beijing on Tuesday. 'For Tibetans the key is that journalists do everything they can to get the real story out,' she said. She said the special rules show that China believes it needs to 'control the image of Tibet that the world sees.' 'What the special rules for Tibet show is that the Chinese rule there is not stable,' she said. © 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

On the Web

Blowing Up Blogs

Place your ad here
Loading...

Your Talkback on this Story

Latest Headlines in Asia-Pacific

Older Talkback

page: 1

Free TibetApr 10th, 2008 - 05:56:55

Over the last 60 years over 1.2 million Tibetans have been massacred in cold blood by the Chinese military. Why has the world remained silent? Why?

China's human rights abuses are 'staggering': the detention of hundreds of thousands of people, including political activists, for 'reeducation' programs, and forced labor camps; and the liberal use of the death penalty in China -- including for political prisoners -- which makes China the site of 8 of every 10 government administered executions carried out in the world!

It is clear that the Communists can't be trusted at all and they have a bag full of tricks to fool not only Tibetans but the people of China with a state-controlled press. The solution is a free Tibet. There is no doubt that a sovereign Tibet would be a savior state not only for Tibetans but for all ethnic groups of China who have nowhere to go if they disagree with the CCP. A free Tibet would be such a free democratic heaven and haven.

For starters in Chinese history, the Great Wall of China is proof enough that Tibet was always an independent nation throughout history.

1-888-TIBET-NOW.

Report this comment

page: 1

Asia-Pacific News

Free Tibet activists detained after protest at Great Wall (Roundup)

On the Web

Your Talkback on this Story

Similar articles

Latest Headlines in Asia-Pacific

Older Talkback

Like M&C on Facebook

Viral Web

In Monsters and Critics

Corporate

The Fine Print