Tibetans Protest Chinese Premier's Visit to India
(AFP | New Delhi | January 13, 2002)
Hundreds of Tibetans protested Sunday as Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji arrived in India, calling on New Delhi to press the visiting leader to grant Tibetans their rights. The demonstrators protested in silence in the Indian capital, wearing black cloths over their mouths to represent the suppression of Tibetans by the Chinese regime.
"India should ask China to free illegally occupied Tibet and stop violating human rights in Tibet as well as in China," Gyari Dolma, vice chairwoman of the Assemblies of Tibetan People's Deputies, told media at the rally.
She also called on India to "do some plain-talking with the Chinese premier," asking Beijing to stop military aid to Pakistan and to give up territory seized from India during a brief border war in 1962.
More than 100,000 Tibetan refugees live in India, where Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule.
China rules the Himalayan region with an iron fist and human rights groups have alleged widespread abuses and a systematic campaign to crush Tibetan culture. Zhu arrived Sunday in the Taj Mahal city of Agra and will head later in the day to New Delhi, where he will hold talks Monday with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org