NEW DELHI, India, Dec. 10, Reuter: Police using batons stopped about 700 Tibetian exiles from crossing police lines during a protest in New Delhi on Thursday against alleged human rights abuse.
The banner waving Tibetians.
Including monks wearing maroon robes, had marched across Paris of the capital to stage a “day of mourning” on December 10 declared by the United Nations as Human Rights Day.
Witnesses said police made no arrests during Thursday’s protest the latest to take place after pro-independence demonstrations in Lhasa last October which Peking said left six people dead.
Minister of State for External Affairs Natwar Singh said in a written reply to Parliament on Wednesday that 217 Tibetian demonstrators had been arrested in the first 11 months this year. All were later released.
He said the government of India regarded “Tibet as an autonomous region of China. Government ‘would not like to be drawn into Controversy on matters that concern relations between China and ‘an autonomous region of the country”.
There are about 100,000 Tibetan exiles living in India, including their spiritual and temporal leader, the Dalai Lama, who fledi after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in Lhasa in 1959.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 18, 1987
