Tibet News (4.16.09)

by Danny Fisher

“Indian policemen arrest a Tibetan activist wearing only his underwear during a protest in New Delhi on Monday. Tibetan students organized a naked protest at the Chinese embassy against the ongoing situation in Tibet. A court in Tibet has condemned two people to die for their roles in violent riots in Lhasa last year, China’s state media said last week, the first death sentences reported over the deadly unrest.” Photo by Prakash Singh for AFP / Getty Images.
Here is some of the latest news about Tibet:

  • The Associated Press reports that “Dutch lawmakers said Thursday they will invite the Dalai Lama to parliament despite a warning from China that the visit would harm relations between the two nations.”
  • Reuters reports that Nepali police recently detained seven Tibetans participating in an anti-China demonstration in Kathmandu.
  • Reuters also reports that the Chinese government “plans to more than double spending on livestock and other local agricultural products upon which rural Tibetans depend.”
  • Asia Sentinel considers Dharamsala as “Tibetan Buddhism’s new permanent home.”
  • Oxford prof Timothy Garton Ash writes for the Los Angeles Times that the lack of nuanced coverage about China has nothing to do with Western biases–as the Chinese government has so often said–but rather the sad state of foreign reporting. He continues:

      The real problem with China coverage in the mainstream Western media is not its negativity; it’s simply that there’s too little of it, given the growing importance of China and the fact that Chinese culture and society is so different from ours. Western media should not be writing less about the Dalai Lama or the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen anniversary, but they should be writing more about the other stories that make up China’s complex, unfolding drama.