Nepal steps up security along Tibet border

Mar 8, 2010, 4:32 GMT

Kathmandu - Nepal has stepped up security along its northern border with Tibet to prevent anti-Chinese activities in the run-up to the 51st anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising, media reports said Monday.

The Nepalese Ministry of Home Affairs ordered security officials to use all resources necessary to prevent any anti-China demonstrations that could undermine relations with its northern neighbour, the Himalayan Times newspaper reported.

The reports came as Nepal's large Tibetan exile population prepared to mark the anniversary on March 10.

'Police will leave no stone unturned to ensure Tibetan exiles will not pose a threat to Nepal-China relations,' police spokesman Bigyan Sharma was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

'Security has been tightened and we will take stern action against the Tibetans if they try to stage anti-China demonstrations,' Sharma said.

The police have also imposed restrictions on demonstrations around the Chinese embassy and its consular office in the capital Kathmandu. Both buildings have been the focus of large-scale demonstrations by Tibetan exiles in the past.

'No group or individual will be allowed to organize demonstrations or mass meetings in those areas,' Sharma said. 'We are keeping a tight vigil on Tibetan exiles in Kathmandu.'

Nepal has nearly 20,000 registered Tibetan refugees living mainly in Kathmandu and the western town of Pokhara.

Tibetan activists and human rights organizations, however, say the number of Tibetan exiles in Nepal is much higher, as thousands who entered the country after 1990 have not been officially recognized as refugees.

In 2008, Tibetan exiles held large anti-China demonstrations in Kathmandu in which thousands of demonstrators were detained.

The protests stopped after the Maoist-led government took power and threatened demonstrators with deportation to China.

Human rights groups say hundreds of Tibetan refugees undertake a perilous journey across the Himalayans on their way to Nepal each year to escape Chinese rule in their homeland.

But heightened security along the border has reduced the flow to a few dozen in recent years.