Chinese crackdown in Lhasa condemned

Kathmandu, March 25:

The government will not tolerate continued rallies by Tibetan activists outside official Chinese offices in Kathmandu, a spokesman for the home ministry said today.

“We won’t allow any kind of anti-China protest strikes in Nepal,” home ministry spokesman Modraj Dottel told AFP in response to a rally held today outside Chinese consular and state-run Xinhua news agency offices.

Nepal recognises the official Chinese policy that Tibet and Taiwan are indivisible parts of China.

“Nepal’s national policy recognises ‘One China’. We will prevent any anti-China activities that take place in our territory,” Dottel said.

Today’s rally of around 150 Tibetan protesters was broken up by baton-wielding security forces, witnesses said.

“We have detained around 100 protesters,” a police officer at the scene told AFP.

The Nepal Tibetan Solidarity Committee expressed serious concern about the Chinese crackdown on the peaceful protests of Tibetan refugees, demanding that the exact number of arrestees and killed be made public.

The Nepal Tibetan Solidarity Committee, in a press release issued here yesterday, condemned the Chinese government’s act to bar the outside world from collecting information about ongoing clashes between the Chinese police and Tibetan demonstrators.

It stated that the situation in Tibet indicates the Martial Law was imposed in Lhasa. Anyone collecting information about the protests are interrogated, arrested and their equipment are seized, it said.

The Solidarity Committee said people’s movement is restricted by the People’s Liberation Army and the arbitrary detention of Tibetans in Lhasa has been continuing.

Stating all forms of human rights have been suppressed, the committee demanded an end to the torture of prisoners and expressed the need to send independent fact-finding delegations to Lhasa.

“Protests of Tibetans in exile have risen as never before in many parts of the world, including in Nepal and New Delhi,” it stated.

NTSC alleged that China is misleading the international community and its people, adding that China could not divert the world attention by providing false information.