AP:

A group of Tibetan monks disrupted a tour by foreign reporters to Lhasa Thursday, complaining that there is no religious freedom and that the Dalai Lama is not to blame for recent violence.

About 30 monks surged into a carefully stage-managed visit to the sacred Jokang Temple in Lhasa by foreign reporters. They yelled “Tibet is not free. Tibet is not free.”

They also said their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, had nothing to do with recent anti-government riots by Tibetans in Lhasa, where buildings were torched and ethnic Han Chinese were attacked. Government handlers tried to pull the journalists away when the monks protested.

The government has said the March 14 riots were supported by “the Dalai clique.”

With the exception of Thursday’s disruption, the first group of foreign journalists allowed into the Tibetan capital since soon after the riots has been given a carefully monitored glimpse of a city divided.

On Wednesday, the first day of the visit, police presence was visible but not overbearing in the newly built up and heavily Chinese portions of Lhasa, teams of security forces stood in the lanes near the Jokhang Temple.

Two Tibetan teachers drinking in a nearby bar said they were enjoying a first night out after nighttime curfews kept them at home eating mainly tsampa — roasted barley — since the day after the March 14 riot. One reason the curfew was loosened, they said, was the foreign media visit.

Students for a Free Tibet responded to this act of brave disruption of China’s propaganda machine in a statement by Executive Director Lhadon Tethong:

“In Tibet, where the free expression of political views is met with incarceration and torture, these monks risked everything to show the world that Tibet is not free. While the Chinese government tries to paint a picture of criminal Tibetan riots and many in the press focus on ethnic tensions, the fundamental issue is freedom. The Tibetan people are not and never will be content under Chinese rule.”

I think it’s simply worth pointing out that China has been severely embarrassed by these monks. China thought that by hand-picking a group of foreign journalists and bringing them to Lhasa for a brief guided tour of the city, with similarly hand-picked Han Chinese settlers who were injured in protests, they would be able to convince these journalists and then the world that all the problems in Tibet originated from oppressed Tibetans, but now all is well. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get that story line out when the Tibetan monks are willing to risk their personal safety to disrupt the propaganda tour and give these foreign journalists their first real access to Tibet.

This propaganda tour aimed to present a facade of press freedom. China sought to quiet the loud, global sentiment that foreign journalists must be allowed back into Tibet. But it was an illusion, empty of the truth the world needed until these brave monks spoke out and made sure that the press had access to real Tibetans who suffer under oppression and risk their lives for freedom.

Update:

Al Jazeera has video footage of the Tibetan monks at the Jokhang temple as well, though they say 50-60 monks participated in their impromptu news conference.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, has made a powerful statement about Tibet and China in a post on the WashingtonPost.com:

I wish to express my solidarity with the people of Tibet during this critical time in their history. To my dear friend His Holiness the Dalai Lama, let me say: I stand with you. You define non-violence and compassion and goodness. I was in an Easter retreat when the recent tragic events unfolded in Tibet. I learned that China has stated you caused violence. Clearly China does not know you, but they should. I call on China’s government to know His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as so many have come to know, during these long decades years in exile. Listen to His Holiness’ pleas for restraint and calm and no further violence against this civilian population of monastics and lay people.

I urge China to enter into a substantive and meaningful dialogue with this man of peace, the Dalai Lama. China is uniquely positioned to impact and affect our world. Certainly the leaders of China know this or they would not have bid for the Olympics. Killing, imprisonment and torture are not a sport: the innocents must be released and given free and fair trials.

I urge my esteemed friend Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Tibet and be given access to assess, and report to the international community, the events which led to this international outcry for justice. The High Commissioner should be allowed to travel with journalists, and other observers, who may speak truth to power and level the playing field so that, indeed, this episode — these decades of struggle — may attain a peaceful resolution. This will help not only Tibet. It will help China.

And China, poised to receive the world during the forthcoming Olympic Games needs to make sure the eyes of the world will see that China has changed, that China is willing to be a responsible partner in international global affairs. Finally, China must stop naming, blaming and verbally abusing one whose life has been devoted to non violence, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace laureate. [Emphasis added]

 

Amen.

Over at Beijing Wide Open Lhadon Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet, speaks about the fundamental issues surrounding the uprising in Tibet and the success China has had in framing the story around violence, as opposed to the underlying struggle for freedom.

Shortly following the start of protests in Tibet on March 10th, the Chinese government expelled all foreign journalists from Tibet, including areas traditionally part of Tibet that are currently outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region. This has brought a loud outcry from the international community and media outlets.

Now, rather than responding to this pressure by opening up all of Tibet to foreign journalists, China is launching a three day propaganda tour with with twenty-six journalists. Bloomberg reports:

Journalists from 19 organizations including the Associated Press, the U.K.’s Financial Times, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post and Taiwan’s Central News Agency, set off today for a three-day guided tour, state-run Xinhua News Agency said. Bloomberg News wasn’t invited to participate in the event, arranged in response to media requests for access to the region.

The New York Times adds more disturbing details:

To sway international opinion, Beijing allowed a group of about 26 hand-picked foreign journalists to travel to Lhasa on Wednesday to witness the damage in the city and interview victims of the riots, according to the state-controlled media.

Very few journalists have been able to report from inside Tibet. Shortly after the March 14 riots, the government began forcing foreign journalists out of Lhasa. Government blockades have also prevented foreign journalists from reaching Tibetan areas in neighboring provinces.

A Tibetan-American friend, sharing the Times article with me, writes:

The crazy thing is, the TAR has always been a special case of “off limits” to journalists, but now even parts of Tibet incorporated into other provinces are blockaded. This is in clear violation of the explicit commitment made by Beijing ahead of the Olympic Games that everywhere in China (except TAR and Xinjiang) would be free for reporting.

To recap, China banned foreign journalists from Tibet. Then they picked 26 journalists that they are comfortable with and invited them on a guided tour of Tibet. They are scheduling interviews with Chinese government approved “victims of the riots,” a term that almost certainly applies to Han Chinese settlers who may have been hurt in protests. Undoubtedly, these journalists will not be given access to Tibetan political prisoners, or monks, nuns, and lay people shot by the Chinese security forces, or Tibetans whose family members were killed in this crackdown.

I am always hesitant to make comparisons between contemporary events and the actions of Nazi Germany, but this propaganda junket immediately reminds me of the charade put on for the Red Cross at Theresienstadt concentration camp. It will be up to these Communist Party-approved journalists to see if they see through the hoax better than the Red Cross did.

Hand-picked journalists being given a “guided tour” is propaganda and window dressing, not press freedom. This cannot be welcomed one bit, as doing so would only credit the PRC propaganda machine for achieving the response that they seek to receive. I hope those governments and organizations pressing for media access to Tibet do not accept this junket as anything other than a continuation of China’s propaganda and disinformation campaign regarding Tibet.