New Delhi: About ten Tibetan students stripped and locked themselves on the barbed wire fencing surrounding the Chinese embassy here on Monday in protest against Chinese oppression in Lhasa. Chanting slogans of 'Free Tibet', the protesters stood in the scorching sun outside the Chinese embassy demanding independence for their homeland, before being led away by the police. The protest came five days after two Tibetans were sentenced to death by Chinese authorities for their role in riots in Tibet's regional capital of Lhasa in 2008. Two others got suspended death sentences and another life imprisonment. Protests by Buddhist monks against Chinese rule on March 14 last year led to the death of 19 people and sparked waves of protests in Tibetan areas. Tibetan exiles say more than 200 people died in the crackdown. A year later, a tight web of troops and police throughout Tibetan areas appeared to have deterred large-scale unrest. A trickle of isolated protests in recent weeks, including a monk who set himself on fire at the Kirti monastery in Sichuan and a bomb thrown at a government office, which caused no casualties, suggested lingering discontent. Last month, Tibet's self-exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, lamented that Tibet, which he fled 50 years ago after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, had become a "hell on earth" thanks to repressive rule from Beijing.
- Apr 13, 2009