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Buddhist monks interrupt state media tour in China
Fifteen Tibetan Buddhist monks interrupted a state-sponsored media tour of a volatile region of western China on Wednesday, demanding the return of the Dalai Lama and yelling that they had no human rights.
- Agencies
- Published: 11:54 April 9, 2008
Xiahe: Fifteen Tibetan Buddhist monks interrupted a state-sponsored media tour of a volatile region of western China on Wednesday, demanding the return of the Dalai Lama and yelling that they had no human rights.
In the second such incident in as many months, the monks, carrying a banned Tibetan flag, burst out of a building at the Labrang monastery in the town of Xiahe, in the northwestern province of Gansu, and rushed across a plaza to a group of 20 visiting Chinese and foreign journalists.
One monk told the reporters, "The Dalai Lama has to come back to Tibet. We are not asking for Tibetan independence, we are just asking for human rights. We have no human rights now."
Many of the monks had covered their heads in robes. Eight monks are still being held by authorities.
The incident is the second disruption by protesting Buddhist monks during a stage-managed tour organised for reporters.
In late March, Chinese authorities were embarrassed after about 30 monks stormed a briefing by a temple administrator for a select group of foreign journalists at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, shouting that the reporters were being lied to.
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