Tibet Will Be Free reports:

At 4pm today GMT (midnight in Tibet) the Chinese Government’s deadline for the cessation of protests in Tibet expires. The government has threatened “harsher treatment” for Tibetans who continue to challenge the government. With at least 30 protesters already dead we’re fearing what harsher means. Tibetans and Tibet supporters around the world are gearing up to make sure the eyes of the world remain on Tibet to protect the Tibetans risking their lives in protest.

The Dalai Lama spoke out strongly yesterday, saying that Chinese authorities “simply rely on using force in order to simulate peace, a peace brought by force using a rule of terror.”

See incredible video footage of protests in Labrang HERE
And photos from Amdo and other protests HERE

Lhasa Rising makes a great point on the essential ineffectiveness of Chinese efforts to break Tibetans’ will for independence.

Tibet will be free, and here is why. As the Guardian (UK) wrote, “Beijing can be benevolent or brutal, but it will find that national identity lies at the heart of Tibetan demands for self-determination.”

…

Against Tibet, China has tried repression, it has tried genocide, it has tried communist revolution, it has tried capitalist consumerism, and it has tried demographic assault. Nothing has worked. Tibetans refuse to be brought to their knees. To the Chinese government, I say this: You have failed. Tibet will never be a part of China. Tibet will be an independent country once again, and the sooner you accept that, the better it will be for China, Tibet, and the world. Tibet will be free.

China has been trying to get Tibetans to forget their claims to independence and stop yearning for freedom for over 50 years. No matter what they’ve done, they have failed to make Tibetans drop their desire for freedom. They will continue to fail and, as Lhasa Rising says, Tibet will be free.

Update:

The NY Times reports on the Dalai Lama’s response to China’s deadline:

The Dalai Lama accused China on Sunday of waging “cultural genocide” against his followers in Tibet and called for an international inquiry into the suppression of protests there, his strongest defense to date of Tibetan Buddhists who have staged an uprising against Chinese rule.

Speaking at the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile, the Dalai Lama endorsed the right of his people to press grievances peacefully against the Chinese authorities, and said he would not ask Tibetans to surrender to Chinese military police by midnight on Monday, as Beijing has demanded. He said that he had no moral authority to do so and that Tibetans had beseeched him not to capitulate to that demand.

“Whether the Chinese government admits it or not, a nation with an ancient cultural heritage is actually facing serious dangers,” the Dalai Lama told reporters during an emotionally charged news conference here. “Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place.”

His comments reflected the inflamed passions among Tibetans abroad, who view the revolts, the largest since the late 1980s, as a watershed moment.