Archive for the ‘Tibet’ Category
San Francisco set for torch relay
Posted on: April 9, 2008
- In: Athens | Beijing 2008 | china | Greece | march | Official | Olympia | protesters | San Francisco | Tibet | Torch
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Richard Gere at vigil
Hundreds of pro-Tibet protesters have marched in San Francisco, as the city prepares to host the next leg of the international Olympic torch relay.
Demonstrators carrying Tibetan flags marched to the Chinese consulate to denounce Beijing’s policy on Tibet.
Officials have promised tight security for Wednesday’s torch relay, following chaotic scenes in London and Paris.
Officials in Beijing have condemned the disruption to the procession but promised that it would continue.
Extra police will line the torch’s route as it follows a six-mile (10km) route through San Francisco, starting at 1300 (2000 GMT).
Mayor Gavin Newsom said he had been in touch with officials in the UK and France to discuss ways of handling the protesters.
“I’m not naive to the challenge associated with this event,” he said.
At a candle-lit vigil on Tuesday near City Hall, South African Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu urged world leaders not to go to the Games.
“For God’s sake, for the sake of our children, for the sake of their children, for the sake of the beautiful people of Tibet – don’t go,” he said.
“Tell your counterparts in Beijing you wanted to come but looked at your schedule and realised you have something else to do.”
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Hollywood actor and long-time Tibet activist Richard Gere attacked China’s plans to parade the torch through Tibet.
“The game-plan of bringing this torch to Tibet, as if it was a harmonious society, is so patently false and insulting to the Tibetans,” Mr Gere told the rally.
But in San Francisco’s Chinatown, community representatives held a news conference to call for a peaceful relay and voice pride over China’s hosting of the Games.
“If I support the Olympics, of course I don’t support the protests,” local resident Ling Li told the Associated Press News agency.
“This is the first time China has had the Olympics. We should be proud of this.”
The flame was lit in Greece on 24 March and is being relayed through 20 countries before being carried into the opening ceremony in Beijing on 8 August.
Protests have already caused serious disruption to legs in London and Paris. In Paris, the torch had to be extinguished three times, while in London there were 37 arrests.
The demonstrators are protesting over a security crackdown in Tibet after anti-Chinese unrest.
Tibetan exile groups say Chinese security forces killed dozens of protesters. Beijing says about 19 people were killed in rioting.
State media said one police officer was killed and the exiled Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported one Tibetan protester shot dead and another critically hurt after unrest in Sichuan’s Ganzi (Garze) Tibetan Prefecture.
“The police were forced to fire warning shots, and dispersed the lawless mobsters,” the brief Xinhua news agency report said, without mentioning any deaths of protesters, who it said attacked with rocks and knives.
The latest news of unrest and arrests comes after protesters seeking to put pressure on China tried to disrupt the Beijing Olympic Games torch-lighting ceremony in Greece, an act that Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang called “disgraceful”.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged China on Tuesday to show responsibility over the unrest and refused to rule out a possible boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games.
“I don’t close the door to any option, but I think it’s more prudent to reserve my responses to concrete developments in the situation,” Sarkozy said, when asked about a possible boycott.
In Washington, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, reacting to Sarkozy’s remarks on the Olympics, said there was no change in Bush’s plans to attend the Games.
“We believe that China should respect minority cultures — particularly in this case, the Tibetan culture — and we want to make sure that there is freedom of the press and international access to the area,” Perino said. Continued…
- In: Beijing | boycott | china | EU | Geneva | Nicolas Sarkozy | Olympics | opening | Tibet
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Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, has led a chorus of European criticism over China’s actions in Tibet, refusing to rule out a boycott of the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
Simon Heffer: Does Gordon Brown need Nicolas Sarkozy?
Richard Spencer: China is blind to the hostility it can arouse
Richard Spencer: The Olympics were already political
Tibet groups abroad say a protester was shot dead when police responded by ‘firing indiscriminately’
“I don’t close the door to any option. I want dialogue to begin and I will graduate my response according to the response given by Chinese authorities,” Mr Sarkozy said.
Until yesterday, Western governments had been measured in their response to two weeks of unrest in Tibet, mostly rejecting any possibility of an Olympics boycott.
But days of strident attacks on the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, by Beijing; an uncompromising security response inside Tibet, and the publicity gained by anti-China protesters abroad have generated a fiercer response.
Britain also criticised Beijing, with an annual report by the Foreign Office highlighting Beijing’s “violation” of human rights in Tibet. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said worldwide concern about the situation in Tibet was “justified and proper”.
“There needs to be mutual respect between all communities and sustained dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities,” he said.
In its first collective statement, the European Union demanded that China stop using force against peaceful protesters, while also calling on demonstrators to “desist from violence”.
“The EU stresses the importance it attaches to the right of freedom of expression and peaceful protest,” it said at the United Nations in Geneva.
Germany also urged dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama. A spokesman said Chancellor Angela Merkel was prepared “at any time” to repeat her meeting last year with the Dalai Lama, which plunged relations between Beijing and Berlin into an unexpected freeze.
At the weekend, the Chinese government accused the Dalai Lama of being behind rioting in Lhasa, which left 19 dead, and of conspiring with Muslim terrorists to sabotage the Olympic Games.
A government spokesman said a protest by free speech campaigners at the lighting of the Olympic torch in Greece was “shameful and unpopular”.
The spokesman added: “We also believe that competent authorities in countries through which the torch relay will pass have the obligation to ensure a smooth relay.”
This suggests that China expects host countries, including Britain, to react vigorously to prevent protests.
Today, in a public relations fightback, Beijing will take a small, carefully selected group of foreign journalists to Lhasa to present its side of the story.
The government confirmed that a policeman was killed by rioters in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province on Monday.
Tibet groups abroad say a protester was shot dead when police responded by “firing indiscriminately”.
Opponents of Chinese rule in Tibet set fire to vehicles and shops on Friday as tear gas filled the streets and gunfire rang out in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, according to witnesses and human rights groups.
The protests — initiated by Buddhist monks — have been growing since Monday, the anniversary of the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Beijing rule. Tibet, an autonomous province, has long sought independence from China.
Roughly 1,000 people hurled rocks and concrete at security forces and military trucks pushing back riot police, a witness told CNN.
A Tibetan guide said armed police backed by armored vehicles were blocking major intersections in the city center and that an entire street in a busy shopping area outside the Jokhang temple “seemed to be on fire.” He said he had heard “cannon fire” and had heard reports of tear gas being used against protesters, The Associated Press reported.
In a statement, the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader and the head of the Tibetan government in exile, said he was “deeply concerned” by the developing situation and said the protests were “a manifestation of the deep-rooted resentment of the Tibetan people” under Chinese rule.
“I appeal to the Chinese leadership to stop using force and address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue. I also urge my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence,” the Dalai Lama said.
Protesters appeared to be targeting shops and vehicles owned by Han Chinese, the predominant ethnic group in China.
A main market in the capital was set on fire, and some Tibetans were hospitalized with serious injuries, according to Kate Saunders, a spokeswoman for the International Campaign for Tibet, which promotes human rights and democratic freedom in Tibet.
Friday’s violence started when police tried to stop a peaceful protest by monks at the Ramoche Temple, Tashi Choephel of the Tibetan Center for Human Rights told CNN from Dharamsala, India.
“The monks from the Ramoche Temple on the north side of Lhasa, they started a peaceful demonstration and they were blocked by the People’s Armed Police,” Choephel said.
Speaking to The Associated Press, a witness said hundreds of monks and civilians were involved in the protests, setting police cars and army vehicles alight. A Lhasa resident said police had imposed a curfew, closing off all roads into the city center.
A photo e-mailed to CNN from a source in Lhasa showed what appeared to be Chinese military vehicles containing security forces armed with riot shields at the Ramoche Temple. Video Watch reports of rioting in Tibet »
Saunders said violence broke out as bystanders joined the protest. “Apparently local people — lay people — got involved, and a police car was set on fire. This was followed by Tromsikhang Market being set on fire,” she said from London.
The market has many Chinese traders. Saunders said Tibetans are concerned about the influx of Chinese into the area. Some ethnic Tibetan shopkeepers hung scarves outside their stores in an effort to spare them from the protesters’ wrath, a witness reported.
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