AP: Tibetan Buddhist Monks Interrupt Another Chinese Press Tour
by Danny Fisher
From the Associated Press:
- About 30 Tibetan Buddhist monks staged an anti-government protest Wednesday in front of a group of foreign journalists visiting a monastery in western China, South Korean media reported.
Authorities have tightly restricted access to Tibet and Tibetan areas of western China, where riots against Chinese rule broke out last month. The sometimes violent demonstrations were the largest and most sustained among Tibetans in almost two decades.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported only that monks at the Labrang monastery in western Gansu province bordering Tibet had interrupted the event, and that the visit resumed soon afterward.
The incident followed a similar interruption during a closely scripted government media tour of Lhasa two weeks ago to view damage from the protests.
However, the Yonhap news agency said about 30 monks burst in on the carefully controlled Chinese government media tour and called for Tibet’s independence from China.
The Associated Press was not invited to participate in the trip, and it was not immediately possible to independently verify Yonhap’s report.
