Tibet monks stage monastery protest before media

4/9/2008 - 7:57:26 AM

About 30 Tibetan Buddhist monks at a monastery in western China staged an anti-government protest today in front of a group of visiting foreign journalists, according to South Korean media.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported only that a group of monks at the monastery of Labrang in western Gansu province bordering Tibet had interrupted the event, and said the visit resumed soon afterward.

However, South Korea’s 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 incident followed a similar interruption during a closely scripted government media tour of Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, two weeks ago to view damage from deadly anti-government riots that erupted there last month.

Authorities have tightly restricted access to Tibet and Tibetan areas of western China where protests also broke out. The sometimes violent anti-government demonstrations were the largest and most sustained among Tibetans in almost two decades.

Foreign journalists were present at Lhasa’s Jokhang temple, one of the holiest shrines in Tibet, when a group of monks interrupted a government media tour with an emotional outburst.

The monks complained about a lack of religious freedom and called for the return of the Dalai Lama, their exiled spiritual leader.

Champa Phuntsok today said those monks had not been punished for speaking out.

“We simply do not punish or execute monks for telling a different version. Of course their version is untrue,” he said.